Review of On Deadly Ground (1994) by Paul E — 23 Feb 2008

I totally forgot about this gem of a movie until I made the mistake of watching TNT on Saturday night. Most Steven Seagal movies are ridiculously awesome, but this takes the cake. You have Michael Caine and John McGinley playing the bad guys, I mean you can't ask for more than that. But, oh, does it this movie keep delivering. Joan Chen playing an Inuit. Billy Bob Thorton doing Billy Bob Thorton things. R. Lee Ermey! Mike Starr (ok, I mean his career pretty much peaked just by being in Miller's Crossing and Goodfellas in the same year--but hey, he gets to play a guy named Big Mike).

Anyway, so other highlights of this flick--Dr. Cox shoots Eskimos. He doesn't, alas, shoot Zach Braff dressed as an Eskimo. Steven Seagal is rescued by the aforementioned eskimo/inuit/native type peoples and has an ancient eskimo woman try to shove whale blubber in his mouth. Then they dance around him in silly costumes in an attempt to drive the evil spirits from him. Then he tries to steal their sled dogs, who are the only characters in the movie able to kick Seagal's ass (which they proceed to do, mauling his whitey ass until the shaman calls them off). This is also the pre-300+ lb Seagal--just before he ballooned out. So he can actually still kick some ass without camera tricks. Although kicking ass seems to involve him playing silly hand games with Mike Starr and then teaching him a moral lesson about taunting drunk Native Americans. I dunno, something like that. It doesn't make much sense. But when you have Michael Caine getting pissed off at reindeer, does it really need to make any sense? I mean this was the highwater mark of Seagal's career. I suppose Under Seige 2 was alright--Eric Bogosian as archvillian is never a bad idea. But two years later Seagal is doing Glimmer Man, and, well, its been downhill since then. So revel in the eskimo-pie goodness that is On Deadly Ground and know that Seagal was two years away from eating himself into deadly fat ground and wearing even bigger, even more tacky tassle jackets. That and he'd never have to defeat Michael Caine in a movie again.