Under Siege 2: Dark Territory [DVD] [1995]

Anyone who has seen the original Under Siege movie will know that Casey Ryback is a cook who has a few other skills, specifically unarmed combat, explosives usage, weapons deployment, counter-terrorism, espionage and so on. In case anyone still hasn't caught on, he's a former Navy SEAL team leader.

This film sees him on a train with his niece, taking a well-earned break. Unfortunately also on the train are some pretty bad guys who decide to take the train hostage so they can hijack some extremely powerful US military hardware. One of the bad guys is the scientist who developed the system and who faked his own death.

As you might expect, Ryback takes a pretty dim view of the proceedings and sets about killing the bad guys. In the meantime the US military is trying to figure out how to get its killer satellite under control before it wipes out Washington DC and most of the Eastern US.

Much violence follows with Ryback unsurprisingly coming out on top with his clothes barely ruffled and only a few hairs out of place. It's not the most believable movie but, let's be frank, you don't buy a film like this for the realistic plot. It's a great movie - I watched it twice in two days.

Here we are again movie fans. A hardcore violent action film with all the hardcore violence removed just for UK audiences. Some ***SPOILERS*** follow (but let's be honest. This is a Steven Seagal film, so you know what happens.)

Here's roughly what's missing:

***Spoilers***

*Ryback slashing a guys wrist with a knife.
*We don't see the close up of the henchman that Ryback kicks off the train roof being dragged along for a while before going completely under the front.
*The part when Ryback uses a makeshift bomb - we don't see the burning mercenary bump into another guy and set him on fire aswell. They stagger around for quite a few seconds before Penn decides to shoot one of them rather than use a fire extinguisher.
*Ryback kicking the guy shot by the flare gun out of the train door.
*Ryback breaking both of the next mercenary's wrists has been cut out.
*On the cliff-face when Ryback is hanging on to the rope, we don't see him smash the guy's face into the rock.
*When mercenary (Peter Greene) is about to shoot the porter and Ryback intervenes, we don't his head being forced back so his neck breaks.
*The shot of the knife sticking out of the mercenary's neck when Ryback is in the hostage carriage should be longer.
*When the mercenary challenges Penn and says "I say it's time to cut and run" the brutal death that follows is missing some shots.
*Ryback breaks another mercenary's arm in a fight after he discovers the grenade set to go off in the corridor.
*UK version is missing the close up shots of the knives Ryback and Penn use before they fight.
*We also don't get the sound effect of Penn having his neck broken.
*The reason Dane falls from the helicopter is that Ryback closes the door, severing all of Dane's fingers. This is completely missing in the UK print of the movie.

***End Of Spoilers***

All in all, a total of 2 mins is missing from this DVD. It is available uncut on region 1, so do yourself a favour and get a multi-region player. A Multi-region is a worthwhile investment if you're an action movie fan since nearly all action films in this country are cut at the behest of the BBFC (True Lies, Eraser, Commando, Cliffhanger, Tango & Cash, Under Siege, Marked For Death, On Deadly Ground, Nico, Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 4, Die Hard with A Vengeance....all cut in the UK, and the list goes on.)

Go figure: Under Siege 2 was driven purely by contractual obligation. It's also superior to Seagal's previous effort, On Deadly Ground, an abomination he also directed and produced.

Being the most successful Seagal film at the time (and subsequently, ever) Under Siege could not get away without a sequel. The producers follow a tried and true method: they just make the same exact movie all over again. Once again, Seagal dispatches a team of highly trained yet bumbling terrorists. Instead of a battleship it's a massive train that gets taken over by terrorists with a master plan to kill a lot of people and make a lot of money. In other words, Die Hard on a train. Eric Bogossian plays yet another insane former CIA resource running amok, having stolen a top-secret satellite thingee that can fire laser beams from space and cause earthquakes. Or something like that.

It's up to Seagal, as Casey Ryback (former Navy SEAL who, according to the niece/hostage whom with he's travelling, has 'medals so secret he can't show to them anybody') to bump off the terrorists one by one. Dressed entirely in black in order to hide his expanding waistline, Seagal does it all: shoots, stabs, blows up, punches, kicks and maims a team of bad guys led by Everitt McGill, another arch bad guy who actually wants to fight Seagal because 'he scares me'. Seagal himself gets shot, falls off a train, falls off a cliff, and outruns a speeding train. He even gets in a plug for the first PDA, the Apple Newton, which saves the day while Seagal breaks necks and shoots ears off.

I enjoyed this one immensely. Eric Bogossian is perfect as the loony toons leader of the pack, another guy who plans to blow up half of America for a lot of money (not wondering what his money would be worth after that).

Seagal utters about 100 words in this film, another direct correlation to the quality of the film. The less Seagal says, the better. The more bones he's breaking, baddies he's shooting, and bombs he's making out of the contents of a wet bar, the better. No preaching, no Zen philosophy. At one point he tells his sidekick, a scared porter hiding in the luggage car, "I'm gonna get through my bag of tricks, and we are going to rescue those hostages." Then he stares into the distance, doing that crazy eyebrow thing in what is supposed to represent grim determination in the face of grave danger.

Whatever. The movie is brisk at under 100 minutes, the direction is sharp and economical. The bad guys are evil. They die violently, including a female assasin who gets dropped out of a helicoptor and bounces off the side of a train with a loud, satisfying *thunk*. Fingers get chopped off, necks are broken, people get thrown off moving trains, and Seagal makes a constipated face as he settles into a martial arts stance that suggests he's going to rip his pants. Plot holes? Sure, like who's driving the train after Seagal shoots everyone in the locomotive? Seagal even takes a sniper bullet but ignores it, as if he only deals with serious wounds. ('This ain't being shot.') His black blazer is in great shape at the end despite the fact that he's been dangling off the side of cliffs, crawling on top of trains, getting shot, etc.

It's completely acceptable on a slow night. Incidentally, Basil Pouledouris' score is not bad.

Also note that Morris Chestnut, playing Seagal's 'sidekick', would go on to play the villain in a later and much worse Seagal outing (Half Past Dead) which is a high or low, depending on your pov.