On the final voyage of the historic battleship USS Missouri, Executive Officer Commander Krill (Gary Busey, Lethal Weapon) throws a surprise party for the skeleton crew. He’s lined up a caterer and waiters, a blues band led by William Strannix (Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive), and even a Playmate (Erika Eleniak, Baywatch) to jump out of a giant cake. The party ends abruptly when Strannix, Krill, and all the waiters hijack the battleship. Their plan is to sell off the arsenal of Tomahawk cruise missiles to rogue nations eager to attack America. What they didn’t count on was the ship’s Cajun cook Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal, Above The Law) being a former Navy Seal. Can Ryback retake the battleship from the terrorists with the help of the Playmate who has never fired a gun?
What We Thought:
From the late 1980s to the 1990s Steven Seagal was a bankable action star. Under Siege may have been Die Hard on a battleship, but it was a box office hit and a cable mainstay. I remember seeing it repeatedly in the 1990s especially a certain birthday cake scene with Erika Eleniak. I probably hadn’t seen it in over 25 years and watching the new 4K release I never realized or didn’t remember actors like Colm Meaney and Glenn Morshower were part of the cast along with Seagal, Eleniak, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey. I also probably didn’t compare it to The Rock which has a similar plot of former military men wanting revenge.
Is Under Siege a good movie? No, but it’s still highly watchable. Seagal does his typical big guy martial arts stuff and slows the film down because of it, but I have a soft spot for his films of that era. It really is just Die Hard on the USS Missouri with Seagal the only guy who can stop the attack. He’s a Navy SEAL who the crew only thinks is a cook and soon he’s taking down the bad guys with kitchen knives and karate kicks! Eleniak joins him and once he releases some other crew members, they take on Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey and the rest of the bad guys.
If you grew up on these films they are still fun. Sure the action is over-the-top and predictable and nothing like what we get in a John Wick film, but that was the era. It’s all overly choreographed for Seagal to look good and look like he can take on 5 guys at a time, but that’s what it was like for guys like JCVD, Stallone and Arnold at the time.
The new 4K release of Under Siege is great for guys like me, the late GenX’ers who grew up on 80s and 90s action flicks. The plot is almost irrelevant and predictable. Eleniak is beautiful. Seagal kicks butt. What more do you need? Was anyone begging for a 4K of Under Siege? Probably not, but it has some solid bonus features including new interviews and a new commentary so if you are a fan of the film you’ll enjoy it.
The Nerds Templar 