The Near Midnight Meanderings On A Movie With A Microwave Meal Part 3:On Deadly Ground (1994)

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

I've not seen a lot of Steven Seagal movies. Largely because they came at a time when I realised that there was no chance I could save the [insert area here] from the clutches of villainous domination without getting damaged physically in the process. In other words I was getting older.

However there was one exception to this. Under Siege was the sort of film where as long you didn't take it seriously you would enjoy it. There was a sense of people enjoying themselves which no other movie I've seen with Seagal has.

(Also it was the first movie I ever saw where when there was a scene where Erika Eleniak was practically topless and my first thought was "Are they real?")

But it appeared after that Seagal movies reverted to type. Because with slight quirks On Deadly Ground is really no different to most of his other stuff.

Basically the movie is about Seagal trying to stop villainous oil baron Michael Caine from controlling the Alaskan oil pipeline and endangering the environment and the Eskimo community there.

Seagal in an expert on dealing with oil rig fires. So expert that in the beginning he resolves one whilst smoking. He can also fight. In an early scene he beats a guy up whilst saying "What does it take to change the essence of a man".....what?

And when I described Caine as villainous. Well that includes his performance in this as well. The greatest crime committed on this movie was not on the environment but by Caine getting money from the producers assuming he wouldn't (given it's 1994) fax it in. Really it wasn't so much hamming it but providing the whole pig. His accent is part American from goodness knows where and part Mockney Cockney. I'm sure somebody was offended by it. Me? I laughed

Let me rephrase this. Michael Caine. No, Sir Michael Caine, is the worst actor in a Steven Seagal movie.

Commercial Break Time: Surely the most smug man in ad land is the guy who thinks he's clever because he's hidden the smell of a bacon from a room with Febreeze and his girlfriend is puzzled because whilst the room is fresh smelling he's reeking of cooked pork?

Well my friend you shouldn't be so smug that you know how to use a Febreeze bottle. I bet your girlfriend does too. Also she will wonder whether if you can hide any unpleasant odours from a room there are other secrets you're not telling her and will leave you. Not so smug now eh?

In the movie you will get a lot on the Eskimo way of life. Well the Eskimo way of life as it appears in a Steven Seagal movie anyway. Was it genuine? Absolutely no idea.

But of course what you get in the end are fights. Unrealistic as it happens. You just looked at them and thought physically it was impossible. Also you'll get things blowing up. Yet Seagal and Joan Chen look as if nothing had happened. In the film Seagal will lecture on the environment, and yet I'm sure all of the explosions it produced didn't exactly help the Alaskan landscape.

An awful movie. Will cross it off the list. Won't see it again.

Until the next time.