Under Siege

The fun kind of dumb, _Under Siege_ is probably Segal's best work, and in my opinion the only reason people ever mention him in the same breath as the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger or Willis. _Final rating:★★★½ - I really liked it. Would strongly recommend you give it your time_.

"Krill" (Gary Busey) is the rather narked XO on the battleship USS Missouri who sees the captain's impending birthday party as an opportunity to team up with "Strannix" (Tommy Lee Jones), seize the ship and extort a fortune from the American government. The girl (the very annoying "Jordan" - Erika Eleniak) coming from the cake he expected, the fact that the ship's cook is a former SEAL he did not - especially when this knife-wielding sailor starts to make his presence felt and a battle royal hots up. The scenario is pretty far-fetched, but to be fair to Steven Seagal as the chef with attitude, this is a fair action adventure film with plenty of combat, kitchen devil action and pyrotechnics to compensate for the pretty woeful dialogue and acting - especially from Busey - that only really works when the enthusiastic TLJ is letting loose the dogs of war. There's no jeopardy to speak of, the ending is never really in doubt - but I still find this, periodically, an enjoyable bit of machismo escapism that passes the time ok.

Really solid action-thriller where it's a trip to see Steven Seagal actually giving a damn. The action scenes directed by Andrew Davis was great and the pacing on point. Tommy Lee Jones was pretty zany (kind of reminded me of his Two-Face, frankly) and of course Gary Busey was insane, albeit a more toned down version of his character from Lethal Weapon. Budget on this was only $30M (with inflation would be $70M today) which makes this even more impressive. **3.75/5**