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A Mild Defense of On Deadly Ground

I promise I won’t go in-depth on any other Seagal movies. Ever. They’re fun, better than I ever imagined, but I think all the in-depth analysis needed has been covered in the Seagalogy book I’m reviewing.

As I mentioned, I’ve watched more Seagal movies than any sane man should, in chronological order from his screen debut in Above the Law through his directorial debut, On Deadly Ground. I plan to continue with more, but I’m pausing to catch my breath and remark on what’s regarded as Seagal’s most laughable movie.

First, a clarification for folks who don’t know much about Seagal (I didn’t know any of this until I started watching these movies a few days ago). He looks like another meathead action star, and in many ways he is, but he also elected to take the Stallone approach, demanding creative control early and often. Except, unlike Stallone, he doesn’t steal other people’s screenplays and credited himself with writing them. Seagal has done largely uncredited writing work on every movie he’s starred in, giving the writers credit for forming his strange but awesome ideological beliefs into a story that’s often coherent. He also has producing credits on every movie he’s starred in. Not executive producer, associate producer, or co-producer — the elusive produced by credit, meaning he actually had more authority over the movies than your average star.

With the surprise success of Under Siege, Seagal took it up a notch, holding Warner Brothers’ sequel hostage like so many ex-CIA terrorists…unless they gave him the opportunity to direct. The product was On Deadly Ground, a savagely anti-oil, anti-big-business, anti-government, pro-environment, pro-Native American rights, pro-animal movie that combines the strangest quirks of Seagal’s personality with huge explosions. Vern, Ain’t It Cool News reviewer and the author of Seagalogy, calls On Deadly Ground “the essence of Seagalogy,” and he’s absolutely right.

Calling it “good” would damage what little credibility I have as a critic, but I look at it like a guy who has a lot of good-intentioned things to say, but he picks the absolute wrong way to say them. Because he’s Steven Seagal, action star, and he knows what his audience expects: action, and lots of it. Would they mind if he incorporated a bit of his political philosophy into it? Probably not, because his five previous movies were loaded with dark subplots about political and police corruption. But he went way over the top this time.

The story goes like this: Forrest Taft (Steven Seagal) is a well-known and well-respected…oil guy. Somehow, he makes $350,000 per year, shares Thai hookers with his boss (played awesomely by Michael Caine), and has made his way into the upper echelon of the Aegis Oil Company because he’s real good at putting out fires. Seriously, the introduction to his character involves him blowing the shit out of an oil rig (featuring an excellent shot of flames engulfing the entire frame as Seagal and Caine stand there looking like bad-asses), and that appears to be his entire job. In an unusual use of crowd looping, Seagal-the-director tosses in clear feedback from workers on the rig, all of whom applaud Taft’s arrival on the scene: he’ll take care of this fire. What else does he do to earn all that money?

At the very least, we get a nice implication of Taft’s history in the oil business — he’s more at home with the blue-collar workers in the field than he is with stuffed-shirts like Caine, John C. McGinley, and Shari Shattuck. Everyone likes him, even though he essentially sold them out to make more money and become some kind of oil mercenary, I guess. Literally the second scene in the movie is a long barfight that manages to combine kick-ass action, character development, and several plot points — surprisingly well-written and well-choreographed. The barfight also includes film’s strangest ending to a barfight ass-kicking scene: Seagal challenges “Big Mike” (Mike Starr — you’d know him if you saw him) to a game of Slaps (known in some quarters as Bitchslap). For those who haven’t played it, it goes like this: one person holds his hands out, palms up. The other puts his hands on top of them, and the first guy tries to maneuver his hands around to slap the opponent before he can pull away. If you get slapped, the slapper gets to punch you. In a Seagal movie, he gets to break your nose and punch you so hard in the chest you vomit.

So Big Mike, broken and bloodied, vomit drying on his lips, loses the game in spectacular fashion. Seagal asks him, “What does it take to change the essence of a man?” Big Mike, breaking down in tears, says, “I need time to change.” Seagal nods, suddenly looking depressed, and says, “I do, too. I do, too.” Then he gently puts a hand on Big Mike’s shoulder before leaving the bar. And…scene.

And…what the fuck was that? Call it stupid if you will, but I’ve never seen a more bizarre or interesting barfight scene ever, and I’ve watched a shitload of westerns. At first I thought they were implying he was half-Indian, just like Billy Jack, but then a tribal chief confuses him with a bear and he doesn’t have any knowledge of the Inuit language or culture, so it seems pretty unlikely. Either way, I do think that scene was supposed to tell us that he’ll use violence as a…well, basically a first resort, but after he wins, he will Dr. Phil them into submission. Big Mike won’t be messing with anybody ever again.

The actual plot progresses from here: Aegis Oil is using inferior…things (blowout valves, I think they were) because a shipment was delayed. If they don’t get their mythical Aegis-One station online before a certain deadline, mineral rights revert back to the damn Injuns. Michael Caine won’t let that happen, even if it means blowing up Aegis-One. It really is a short-sighted plan: he knows the things won’t work, he knows the result will be a catastrophic explosion that will destroy the entire site (which consequently means they will miss they’re drilling deadline…right?!), but he doesn’t care about the safety of the workers or — more importantly — the land and Natives living there. He’s Michael Caine, the guy who screams at innocent makeup ladies for complimenting him. (Granted, I’d yell at them, too, if I got a look at the ridiculous dye job they gave him for this movie.)

So Seagal’s left with no choice: he runs away. More accurately, in the process of running away he gets caught in a bizarre trap, leaving him injured. An Inuit tribe nurses him back to health, and he goes on a vision quest. Really, this is a strange subplot for an action movie. It takes up a great deal of time. For at least 40 minutes, there’s a back-and-forth between Michael Caine cutting corners and Seagal hallucinating about naked chicks and fighting bears. No real action (the bear fight is impressive because Seagal really tackles Bart the Bear, but the “fight” is very, very short, possibly because bears don’t like being tackled), just sweaty vision questing.

Eventually, the vision quest leads Seagal to go back and fight for what’s right — with environmental terrorism. Yes, the overall message of this movie is that if you care about the environment and don’t want Big Oil crushing everything in its path, you need to commit acts of environmental terrorism. That’s not something you usually see in this kind of movie.

The end of the movie contains a fairly long, detailed monologue intercut with stock footage of animals, environmental protests, and tribal dances. Here’s where I really want to rush to the defense of the movie. Because right or wrong, misguided or not, he’s impassioned. He doesn’t have a lot of range as an actor — mostly veering between intense concentration and gadabout sarcasm — but in these final scenes he really sells the speech. Because he isn’t acting — he believes every word he’s saying. Here’s a transcription of the speech, which originally ran for 11 minutes (test audiences found it dull and preachy):

I’d like to start out by saying, thank you to all the brothers and sisters that have come here today representing this cause. I have been asked by Mr. Itok and the tribal council to speak to you and the members of the Press about the injustice that has been brought against us by some Government Officials and Big Business. How many of you out there have heard of alternative engines? Engines that can run on anything from alcohol to garbage or water. Or carburetors that can get hundreds of miles to the gallon. Or electric or magnetic engines, that can practically run forever. You don’t know about them because if they were to come into use, they’d put the oil companies out of business. The concept of the internal combustion engine has been obsolete for over 50 years, but because of the oil cartels and corrupt government regulation, we and the rest of the world have been forced to use gasoline for over a hundred years. Big Business is primarily responsible for destroying the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the food we eat. They have no care for the world they destroy — only for the money they make in the process. How many oil spills can we endure? Millions and millions of gallons of oil are now destroying the ocean and the many forms of life it supports. Among these is plankton, which supplies 60-90% of the Earth’s oxygen. This supports the entire marine ecosystem, which forms the basis of our planet’s food supply. But the plankton is dying. I thought, well, let’s go to remote state or country — anywhere on Earth. But in doing a little research, I realized that these people broker toxic waste all over the world. They basically control the legislation, and, in fact, they control the law. The law says, “No company can be fined over $25,000 a day.” For companies making $10,000,000 dollars a day by dumping lethal toxic wastes into the ocean, it’s only good business to continue doing this. They influence the media so that they can control our minds. They have made it a crime to speak out for ourselves, and if we do so, we’re called “conspiracy nuts” and we’re laughed at. We’re angry, because we’re all being chemically and genetically damaged, and we don’t even realize it. Unfortunately, this will affect our children. We go to work each day, and right under our noses, we see our car and the car in front of us spewing noxious, poisonous gasses that are all accumulative poisons. These poisons kill us slowly, even when we see no effect. How many of us would have believed, if we were told 20 years ago, that on a certain day we wouldn’t be able to see 50 feet in front of us. That we wouldn’t be able to take a deep breath because the air would be a mass of poisonous gas. That we wouldn’t be able to drink out of our faucets, that we’d have to buy water out of bottles. Our most common and God-given rights have been taken away from us. Unfortunately, the reality of our lives is so grim that nobody wants to hear it. Now, I’ve been asked, “What we can do?” I think we need a responsible body of people that can actually represent us, rather than Big Business. This body of people must not allow the introduction of anything into our environment that is not absolutely biodegradable or able to be chemically neutralized upon production. And finally, as long as there is profit to be made from polluting the Earth, companies and individuals will continue to do what they want. We have to force these companies to operate safely and responsibly, and with all our best interests in mind. So that when they don’t, we can take back our resources and our hearts and our minds and do what’s right.

Some of you might scoff and laugh, but you’re playing right into Big Oil’s hands. He says so, right there: “They have made it a crime to speak out for ourselves, and if we do so, we’re called “conspiracy nuts” and we’re laughed at.” Shockingly, that’s what everyone did when On Deadly Ground came out. But it wasn’t a bad movie — as ridiculous and over-the-top as any post-Under Siege Seagal movie would be? Definitely. Does that make him any less sincere or passionate about the environment? No.

Really, the worst thing you can accuse him of is thinking he can change the world with an action movie. Even if On Deadly Ground had had a less ridiculous screenplay, nothing would have changed. Nobody going to see On Deadly Ground would leave the theatre saying, “That’s it — I’m joining Greenpeace!” It was the wrong medium and the wrong audience for his attempted message.

I feel bad. I really do. He has so much passion, desperation, and sadness — it makes me wish he had done something effective, rather than just marking the starting point of Seagal’s slow, sad decline into direct-to-video irrelevance.

Edit: Here’s the fight scene, which showcases the unusual use of background looping Seagal uses throughout the movie (“My balls!”):

Second Edit, 4/27/08: Because I’m an asshole whose mind is cluttered with bizarre trivia but couldn’t remember a chapter of a book I read four days prior to writing this, I mistakenly wrote that Seagalogy author Vern “trashed” On Deadly Ground. After he politely commented to point out my baffling stupidity (see below), I’ve edited this post to reflect the fact that he did not, in any way, trash the movie. In fact, we pretty much agree on this movie. I normally don’t like forging a weird revisionist-history version of reality on this blog, preferring instead to just forge along in ignorance. In this case, I feel really bad and I don’t want people stumbling on this blog, thinking this is some kind of real website and my opinions matter (seriously, it happens), and then not reading through to the comments to see Vern clear his own name.

Tags: embarrassment, fight scene, misguided argument, monologue, my balls, On Deadly Ground, Seagalogy, Steven Seagal, Vern

Posted by Stan on April 9, 2008 5:23 PM  | Permalink  | Print-Friendly  | Reviews | Digg It