Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

Review #2552: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

Cast: 

Steven Seagal (Lieutenant Casey Ryback), Eric Bogosian (Travis Dane), Everett McGill (Marcus Penn), Katherine Heigl (Sarah Ryback), Morris Chestnut (Bobby Zachs), Nick Mancuso (Tom Breaker), Brenda Bakke (Captain Linda Gilder), Peter Greene (Mercenary #1), Patrick Kilpatrick (Mercenary #2), Scott Sowers (Mercenary #3), Afifi Alaouie (Fatima), Andy Romano (Admiral Bates), Dale Dye (Captain Nick Garza), Kurtwood Smith (Major General Stanley Cooper), and David Gianopoulos (Captain David Trilling) Directed by Geoff Murphy.

Review: 

"Films have a mind of their own, they are living entities. You discover them. I made a [Steven] Seagal film [Under Siege 2: Dark Territory] in America. It was a very dreary process and very highly contentious at the time - lots of arguments and stuff. There was a point during the editing where I observed this incredibly high energy beast emerging, and I didn't know where it had come from, because there wasn't any of that energy on the set. It seemed to grow out of the editing process. Whereas others, if you finish a shoot and think 'we've just shot a real beauty', then you're probably in trouble. Because they can jump up and bite you."

Yes, there was a second Under Siege movie. This was the seventh film with Steven Seagal as a star but the first one to come out after the ridiculously overblown On Deadly Ground (1994). You remember Under Siege (1992), right? The original script had been done by Matt Reeves and his college friend Richard Hatem, as they wanted to break into the market of spec scripts with action, with the script (with a working title of "Dark Territory", since, well, it refers to running track not controlled by signals) being described as "meant to be very much like a Die Hard movie". The market crashed for scripts, but it eventually was optioned and converted to what you see, with various script doctors such as Brian Helgeland delivering un-credited work. According to Chestnut, a good deal of the film was improvised, specifically when Seagal was on screen, which basically went, “Okay, this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to say this, I’m going to say this, then I’m going to do that and then you’re going to do that.” This was the last major production for its director Geoff Murphy, who had moved to Hollywood filmmaking after making films in his native New Zealand such as Goodbye Pork Pie (1981), Utu (1983) and The Quiet Earth (1985) that resulted in films such as Young Guns II (1990), Freejack (1992), and, well, this. He kept a busy profile with work in TV, smaller-scale stuff such as Race Against Time (2000) along with second-unit work on The Lord of the Rings. He died in 2018 at the age of 80. Made on a budget of $60 million (double the original), the movie was a mild box office hit, albeit not on the level of the original. Seagal's* next two films the following year were Executive Decision (a supporting role where he took a backseat plane ride to Kurt Russell) and The Glimmer Man. 

Is it unnecessary? Maybe. Is it not as good as the previous Under Siege? Mostly, yea. Is it worth it? Well, you know, I think so. I suppose this is where the apex of Seagal as a "star" has hit, complete with using a Apple Newton MessagePad 100 to really make this a high-tech thriller. But hey, a movie based in tension about trying to take a top-secret weapon looming in space with a hacker and multiple keyboards? This happened to be released a few months before Goldeneye, by the way. Sure, this is a movie that doesn't have the magic of two villains like before with Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey, but Bogosian, combined with the company of a cast that clearly is acting around Seagal, does hold the movie up enough to at least make the movie worth a check. Seagal, well, he mainly is there to lumber around and kick, with ounces of fun only really coming from seeing this guy seemingly try to hide the urge to say/do insane stuff when not engaged in the concentration of being the one-man army (okay, not always one-man, because Chestnut is there at times). He outruns a train crash, for God's sake. Bogosian saw Alan Rickman play a villain in Die Hard (1988) and decided, no I'm not kidding, that he wanted to play "a big, old fat villain in a big action movie". Sure, the end result had a bit of silliness due to the encouragement of Murphy to do so, but he apparently is quite satisfied with how it turned out with a crazed hacker wanting plenty of $ that quotes Louis Pasteur. And I agree with him! He is delightfully fun in this movie, managing to evoke menace with a jagged edge of wit. Then you have folks like McGill (a few years removed from being warmly cool in Twin Peaks*) trying to act tough (as one does when not being foiled by pepper spray) that amuses me greatly in his stature and the eventual result (nobody gets a long fight in this dojo). Chestnut provides a few chuckles as basically the Argyle equivalent that gets to trek across a train and throw people off helicopters while Heigl, well, there's always room to be a character in a different movie. It's an efficient movie for 100 minutes that fiddles in the ride of knowing what you are getting into with goofy scenarios (dropping people off helicopters, big ticking clocks) that you either appreciate or dismiss when it concludes. I liked it fine, and I'll accept the confusion over saying a movie with a middling lead does in fact work enough with the support under him to make it one to recommend. 

 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

song of the day!

*If one goes by what Heigl said or Jenny McCarthy said about auditioning (link here), it was definitely a strange experience being around Seagal.

*I'm still in the second season. We shall see about the movie. Also, he ruled in Licence to Kill.

Silver Bullet.

Review #2451: Silver Bullet.

Cast: 

Gary Busey (Uncle Red), Everett McGill (Reverend Lester Lowe), Corey Haim (Marty Coslaw), Megan Follows (Jane Coslaw), Terry O'Quinn (Sheriff Joe Haller), Bill Smitrovich (Andy Fairton), Robin Groves (Nan Coslaw), Leon Russom (Bob Coslaw), Lawrence Tierney (Owen Knopfler), Kent Broadhurst (Herb Kincaid), Heather Simmons (Tammy Sturmfuller), James A. Baffico (Milt Sturmfuller), James Gammon (Arnie Westrum), and Tovah Feldshuh (Narrator) Directed by Dan Attias.

Review:

It does seem prudent to cover a movie based on a Stephen King work for the holiday season. The movie is based on the horror novella Cycle of the Werewolf, which had been published in 1983 because the original intent of doing a calendar (as illustrated by Bernie Wrightston) with vignettes by King just didn't seem feasible. Making a movie apparently was a quick decision for none other than Dino De Laurentiis for Paramount distribution that was filmed in North Carolina over the span of a few months in late 1984; this was the second of two screenplays King wrote for adaptations of his work that were released in 1985, with Cat's Eye being the other one. Apparently, the design of the werewolf was contentious in production between King, who wanted it to be plain for Carlo Rambaldi (known for his award-winning work on King Kong [1976], Alien [1979], and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial [1982]) to design, and de Laurentiis, who wanted a change, apparently because it looked like a bear. Then they had debate over the performance of the stunts between the hired dance actor...and just having McGill do it. This was the first and so far, only film directed by Dan Attias, who apparently took over the film from a departing Don Coscarelli. He has continued to direct, however, doing episodes for countless TV shows ranging from Miami Vice to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Released in October of 1985 with a budget of $7 million, the movie was not a big success at the time with audiences*.

Apparently, some people took the movie as a comedy (Roger Ebert called it "either the worst movie ever made from a Stephen King story, or the funniest"), because it apparently wasn't exactly a scary yarn. But I thought it was just a neat yarn anyway, engaging in the weird bits that come around in "ordinary" life, namely that really anybody can be a jerk. The movie is narrated by the older version of a sister (this takes place in 1976 so either the narrator [37-year old Feldshuh] is telling this from a very distant future or she aged really badly) that can't help but be annoyed at her brother (the title is two-fold: the silver bullet is both the weapon of choice at the end and the name of the high-powered wheelchair/motorcycle and no I'm not joking). Eventually, the movie gets interesting because of Gary Busey showing up, particularly when he makes an actual wheelchair/motorcycle (when your movie is 95 minutes long, damn the torpedoes, bring up the chair). Of course, this is after the townspeople get themselves into a mob to try and attack the creature that ends up with them being fogged out (including one guy who thought bringing a bat from his bar was going to be the problem-solver). Apparently, Busey was allowed to ad-lib his lines at times because the filmmakers liked what they heard from a guy who, well, was being played by Gary Busey (before the accident, and, well, yea). And he pretty much saves the movie from what could've easily been a family mush-fest because of his entertaining qualities that arise in eccentric nature built on love for the family he cares about the most that could've easily just have been an oaf (besides, I think we know alcoholics in real life that are just straight losers* as opposed to the lovable one presented here). He wants to do right by his nephew and niece and damn it, he makes me smile when he tries to play skeptic to the whole wolf thing. The eccentric-turned-reluctant hero could've easily been the whole movie at the hands of Busey, if you think about it. That's not to say that Haim and Follows aren't great, because they do at least sell the troubles that arise in being a youth in a world that looks stranger and stranger as the years get older, particularly when a wolf happens to be around (to say nothing of their first idea together in what to do about the wolf: send letters that basically say "sir, we know who you are, kill yourself!" - okay maybe that was meant to be funny on purpose). You don't exactly get the most prominent supporting cast beyond a scene or two, but they prove serviceable, mostly with McGill and his pained attempts to justify just who he is (okay maybe the movie could make it a little less obvious who the wolf is, but hey). I don't see the problem with the werewolf design. It's a mythological creature that goes around tearing people apart, the bar is not exactly that high for me to think "oh, a beast". Sure, there are better-looking wolves in other movies (An American Werewolf in London), but calling it a werebear doesn't really tell the whole story, and besides, I kind of like looking at it, particularly since a good chunk of the time is spent seeing it with one eye. Admittedly, the climax does stretch itself a bit to really justify everything that happens (i.e. housebound with, well, one bullet to use), but I think it works itself out in that strangely sweet type of way that reminds you that in the ordinary things of life, you can find weird things to box you in or find ways to connect with people to confront said thing. Or something, because this was a strange movie to ultimately see play out, but I was never bored with it, so I'd call it a win. Maybe it wasn't a scary movie, but older movies got away with the same amount of stuff anyway. As a whole, it is a goofy but earnest little film to seek out for those who like strange execution in family-bound stories or wolf movies beyond the usual suspects, and a movie that has just turned four decades old seems like a good place to start.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*At least Attias was willing to be interviewed about the movie. Didn't have the time to check it out, but I'm sure it has some insight - Silver Bullet! Interview with movie Director Dan Attias #stephenking #silverbullet

*There are alcoholics out there, I imagine, that are annoying as hell when not drunk.