Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
In the desperate race by action movie producers to find the next interesting locale for terrorists to take over for their nefarious activities, it seemed that every time a new location was used for a terrorist themed action film, the other producers would just cross that one off the list. Even the actual Die Hard producers themselves were scrambling to find the next hot spot that John McClane would find himself in, at one point announcing that Die Hard 3 was set to take place on a oceanbound cruise ship where McClane and his estranged wife were taking a second honeymoon when the usual scum showed up. Unfortunately, they were beaten to the punch by the release of 1992’s Under Siege, which starred Steven Seagal as a former Navy SEAL turned ship’s cook who found himself in the middle of a staged terrorist takeover led by Tommy Lee Jones and the ship’s second in command played by Gary Busey. Even though the film took place on a Navy vessel rather than a cruise ship, the reported similarities between that film and the original script for Die Hard 3 coupled with the success of the Seagal film caused the Die Hard script to be thrown in the trash since at that point it would be seen as being little more than a copycat version (although the failed Speed 2: Cruise Control did gamely try for the terrorist on a cruise ship angle and bombed more than anything else due to the lack of original star Keanu Reeves). Having figured out that they now have their own little knockoff franchise on their hands, Seagal and the other producers planned a sequel that would once again feature his Casey Ryback character, a guy who carried as his gimmick the fact that he was a GREAT cook, but he was even better at being a killing machine especially when matched against mercenaries who always seemed to underestimate him and his unmatched abilities. But a huge problem was breached right off the bat when Seagal (upon returning from a vacation) learned that Busey had not only been signed to return as his turncoat character from the original, but was now being promoted to the head villain role despite having (apparently) died in an explosion in Part 1 with the news actually having been reported in trade papers as being a done deal. Worse, the deal with Busey was reportedly a pay or play one, meaning that he would get paid whether they ultimately decided to use him or not in the film and since Seagal had not agreed nor even been consulted about Busey being allowed to return, he decided to pay Busey’s contracted $750,000 salary out of his own pocket so that the production could move on and start fresh. Eventually the producers got ahold of an original action script and decided to retrofit it as being a sequel for Seagal’s Ryback character (a not all that uncommon practice which has been done for the Die Hard and Dirty Harry franchises among others). As far as the fancy location is concerned, this one would be set on a passenger train where Seagal and his niece are riding along and the terrorists hijacking it are looking to take over a weapons grade satellite capable of causing earthquakes (amongst other things) and thus having a constantly mobile base of operations such as a train is ideal since it prevents the government from tracking and destroying them at their location. Everything was locked down in place for this 1995 release and in the key role of the terrorist mastermind who also happens to be the inventor of the satellite, we get Eric Bogosian, one of the most underrated stage performers of all time who only occasionally ventures into doing film acting work and immediately we get a different kind of vibe from Bogosian than we usually see in these type of roles and that is in the way that he’s so…funny (under the guise of being “crazy”). It gets to the point where we start thinking that while Seagal and the others in the cast are playing it deadly straight, Bogosian is actually doing a sly, comedic spoof / parody of the Rickman template of the terrorist mastermind who has constructed a foolproof plan where nothing is being left to chance. Nothing that is, except for the Ex SEAL and counter terrorism specialist who coincidentally happens to be aboard the train as a passenger with one of the best scenes in the movie being when the other mercenaries on the train all suddenly realize that they are dealing with THE Casey Ryback (one of the mercenaries even admits in a trembling voice that Ryback had trained him at Fort Bragg) while Bogosian as a civilian has no idea who they’re talking about or why they’re so afraid except (as Tommy Lee Jones did in the original) he would like to know just exactly why he has a team of what is supposed to be the best mercenaries that money can buy and yet here on the train disrupting their plans is somebody whom they all fear. Nonetheless, the team assembled by Bogosian is one of the best lineups of bad guy actors that one can hope for including Jonathan Banks, Patrick Kilpatrick, Peter (Zed) Greene and best of all legendary veteran villain Everett McGill as the mercenary leader (which makes him the onsite military commander as opposed to Bogosian who is more of the tactical commander) who not only has heard of Ryback but delights at the prospect of going head to head with him in hand to hand combat in order to see just who the bigger badass between the two of them really is. We also have a young and very beautiful Katherine Heigl as Ryback’s niece, daughter of his estranged and very recently deceased brother who naturally must keep her identity amongst the hostages a secret unless she wants to be used as a piece of bait (or worse) although when that inevitable plot development happens, it doesn’t really seem to get played out to its full potential. It’s also kind of funny that whenever we go to the command center where the authorities are hashing it out on just what exactly they should do next in this particular crisis, it’s the SAME three guys from the original movie (Andy Romano as The Admiral, Dale Dye as his Captain sidekick and Nick Mancuso as the shady CIA Chief) but at least here they’re joined by the always welcome Kurtwood Smith as The General who had overseen the development of the advanced weapon and fired Bogosian before Bogosian had faked his death in order to set up this little scheme of his. Unfortunately, the film fulfills another trope from the first film by saddling Seagal with a mostly useless sidekick. At least in Part 1, that role was filled by Erika Eleniak as a sweet and superhot Playboy Playmate who pretty much carried Seagal’s gear for him and acted cute much of the time. Here in Part 2, that role is filled by a porter / bellboy on the train played by Morris Chestnut (best known for getting shot down in the ghetto in Boyz In The Hood) playing it up as being more doubly annoying than Eleniak was without being able to serve as eye candy as well, even getting some ridiculous bits where he manages to get the drop on a couple of these hardened, highly trained mercenaries and start his own body count with the most ludicrous high point being when he takes on and defeats one of them in actual hand to hand combat. Granted, this particular mercenary was a female (whom he not only defeats but kills as well) but still gender should not matter in this case even when Heigl’s niece tries some moves on McGill (which her uncle had “taught” her) which McGill laughs off (even though she had earlier playfully put Chestnut on his ass) and the suggestion that the completely untrained Chestnut could physically take out and kill a female terrorist who has full hand to hand training shows just a hint of sexism here. Of course, Seagal had allegedly auditioned Jenny McCarthy for this movie and ordered her to strip for him and when McCarthy had pointed out that she was told that there were no nude scenes in the movie, she was reportedly told by Seagal that her nude scenes would be “off camera”. But still, Seagal gets another smorgasbord of death here, breaking necks, chucking terrorists off the train to their screaming deaths and finally confronting Bogosian himself, a guy who has stolen this entire movie by playing it as being totally irrelevant and funny and at least giving the movie a strong antagonist that Tommy Lee wasn’t quite able to do in Part 1 (due mostly to poor writing and not his own efforts) as the most that this movie really accomplished in the end was in forcing most movie producers to pull out their little terrorist action movie checklist and cross off “train” as being the next possible setting for this hugely popular subgenre…
7/10