Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Fire Down Below (1997): Dir: Felix Enriguez Acala / Cast: Steven Seagal, Marg Helgenberger, Harry Dean Stanton, Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Lang: One of the dumbest films that Steven Seagal ever conjured up. He plays an agent who arrives in a coal mining town to put a stop to the toxic waste that is poisoning water. He makes a few friends as well as the expected enemies who wish not to be bothered. Boring concept followed by numerous fight scenes before concluding pretty much the same way. Director Felix Enriguez Acala is working with material that has about the same value as diarrhea. Even the production is boring. Seagal spends 90% of the film in combat where he beats up dozens of people including cops. I could only shake my head as some big lout threatens him and he beats the sh*t out him in short order as well as kicking around a bunch of his buddies. In lame supporting roles is Marg Helgenberger who clings to Seagal while he beats up her abusive brother. Harry Dean Stanton is far too valuable for this sh*t. Kris Kristofferson plays the standard villain in a role that is totally beneath him. Stephen Lang plays Helgenberger's nasty abusive brother who will end up with Seagal's foot up his ass. There is no reason to see this garbage unless one has severe anger issues that therapy cannot cure. Pointless junk that should be burned in a fire down below. Score: 0 / 10

Fire down below is not a movie for the family it is definitely an adults only film first of all it is R rated for language violence sexual content it just meant for mature audiences only but if you like action films this is definitely the movie for you as there was plenty of non-stop butt kicking Steven Segal puts on one hell of a performance if you like martial arts sequences foul language then this is definitely the movie for you but I would say please nobody under the age of 16 should be watching this film a child wouldn't understand what was going on in this film anyway I would give this film 10 out of 10 stars

Released in 1997, "Fire Down Below" stars Steven Seagal as an EPA agent who goes undercover in SE Kentucky to investigate the evil deeds of a corporate mogul played by Kris Kristofferson & his minions, which includes dumping toxic waste in abandoned mines and murder. Seagal masquerades as a do-gooder helping people with his carpentry skills and living at a local church, but mogul's cronies are on to him and try to chase him away.The plot kinda reminds me of Clint Eastwood's 1985 "Pale Rider" (which borrowed heavily from "Shane"). A lone stranger comes into town and befriends the common folks, saving them from the evil tycoon and his motley crew. The difference is that "Fire Down Below" is an Eastern rather than a Western and it takes place in modern times. Seagal may not have the supernatural overtones of Clint in "Pale Rider" but his heroics are so fantastical he comes off a bit supernatural just the same.Seagal, of course, is a highly likable protagonist. He's ultra-confident, cool and soft-spoken at all times; and he knows how to kick some serious arse. Numerous times throughout the film he takes on multiple attackers and wins without even breaking a sweat. Unbelievable? Yes, but Seagal makes it believable. He is, after all, 6'4", dressed in cool black threads and a master of all kinds of martial arts.Some say Seagal's a bad actor, but this isn't true. If someone is giving a bad acting performance you can tell because there's an awkward air to their delivery and you don't buy them in the role. This is not the case with Steven. Never for a second does the viewer question Seagal as the protagonist. It may be the only character Seagal can play, but he does it well.Plus Seagal has numerous great one-liners throughout the film. For instance, late in the film he confronts his EPA colleague who has sold out to Kristofferson and says, "You're a piece of s*** and I'm ashamed of you." The line is perfect and perfectly delivered, not to mention so true-to-life. Hasn't anyone ever betrayed you, abused you or disappointed you to the point where you finally give up with the realization that they're just a shameless and shameful piece of s***?One of the best highlights for me is the gorgeous Appalachian locations and cinematography. The picture was filmed on location in SE Kentucky -- Hazzard, Mt. Vernon and points between to be exact. I feel Appalachia is largely under-utilized in filmmaking and greatly enjoy it when films take advantage of this magnificent area of the USA.Seagal's romantic interest is played by Marge Halgenberger, who became popular a few years after this film starring in TV's CSI. She's very believable as the local infamous woman who has a strange relationship with her brother, played by Stephen Lang.Another highlight is the blues/country music heard throughout the picture. It turns out that Seagal wrote or co-wrote many of the songs featured and even performs one on camera. I never even knew he was a musician! There's even a country-ish Jimi Hendrix song. Plus a couple Country stars make cameos, like Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt.FINAl ANALYSIS: "Fire Down Below" falters a bit in the final act but, other than that, I love this film. It has everything you'd expect in a film that takes place in hillbilly country -- good family folks, rednecks, poverty, coal mines, brawls, alcohol, pot farms, backcountry churches, incest and country music. The best feature for me is the genuine Appalachian locations and photography. Add likable Steven Seagal to the mix and you have a winner! As another reviewer has stated, Seagal has a totally winning personality -- a hero with a heart of purest gold. He's certainly someone worth emulating in my book. In fact, in this film he represents all (or most) of the qualities of authentic manhood missing in our current society that celebrates effeminized and weak men (another good example would be Clint Walker in 1966' "Night of the Grizzly").Lastly, I should warn action fans that this is hardly an all-out action film. Yes, there are action pieces interspersed throughout, but they flash by with a few blinks of an eye. "Fire Down Below" is a drama/action/thriller wherein the story plays out fairly leisurely, but with bursts of great violence. Although "Under Siege" is technically a better film and arguably Seagal's all-time best picture, I personally favor "Fire Down Below" for the reasons cited above.The film runs 105 minutes. GRADE: B+

Plot Synopsis: Jack Taggart, an agent working for the EPA, is shocked to discover that his best friend & fellow agent has been killed while investigating reports of people in a rural town in Kentucky getting sick. Posing as a church mission carpenter, he visits the town, uncovering a conspiracy to dump toxic waste in the abandoned coal mines in the nearby mountains by Orin Hanner, a shady businessman whose son runs the town. Faced with a wall of silence in the town & the presence of the dumpers, Jack attempts to expose the dumping & prosecute the people responsible.Film Review: Faced with a dip in popularity during the mid-1990s, the action stars of the 1980s & early 1990s (Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Van Damme, Bronson & Norris) tried a variety of ways to continue their careers – Schwarzenegger & Stallone both tried their hands at comedy with varying results; Van Damme's popularity actually going up a notch for a brief time before crashing down so low that he became stuck in DTV land for the next decade; Norris turned to television while Bronson made a trilogy of DTV films before his death. As for Steven Seagal, the real-life aikido master, police officer (I'm serious), blues musician & actor (I was going to include CIA agent in that list of achievements but I'm not exactly sure if Seagal ever worked for the agency for real), he tried to reinvent himself as an environmental activist, making a trilogy of films in the mid-to-late 1990s that were eco-thrillers (ON DEADLY GROUND, Fire Down Below & The Patriot)… at least in basic plot thematics, that is.Excepting On Deadly Ground, these pro-environment films almost killed Seagal's career stone dead, mainly due to being ridiculously heavy-handed – the villains are all very shrill one-dimensional cardboard cutouts & clichés; the scripts are poorly written; & the most serious flaw of all – the action scenes are poorly staged.Fire Down Below starts out in a way that seems to indicate that Seagal is planning to forsake his customary martial arts sequences for some good old fashioned investigative skills. Not counting the short scene where Seagal stumbles onto a cannabis hydroponics farm, there seems to be a lack of anything that even remotely resembles the sort of brutal martial arts fights that Seagal's early films had showcased.But shortly after it starts, the film degenerates into a muddled blend of one-dimensional stereotypes, tepid car chases & poorly-choreographed fight scenes. There are two things I hate while watching films – having my intelligence insulted & being preached to (by that I don't mean social commentaries or satire – I mean films that beat you over the head with messages). Sure enough, Fire Down Below does both. I find it hard to believe that there could be a person (Kris Kristofferson's villain) so cowardly & stupid that he dumps toxic waste in his home town's mountain range. As for the acting, Kristofferson is actually a good actor, but here he has no motivation for his actions. As for the preaching part, the film lays on the let's-look-after-the-environment message with all the subtlety of a kick to the groin.All of Seagal's films (including the dreck that Seagal made during the 2000s) have this concept of White Hat / Black Hat characters (the White Hat is Seagal, while the Black Hat is a really despicable villain). Of course this scripting idea first manifested itself during Seagal's debut film ABOVE THE LAW & continues in this one, with Kris Kristofferson's businessman being an evil coward who spends his working hours in the company of female escorts.The other actors are quite competent in their performances, especially Marg Helgenberger as the love interest (I kind of liked the idea to give her a shady past, but the film indifferently throws this away by making her brother turn out to have committed the deed) & Harry Dean Stanton (Brain from John Carpenter's ultra cool sci-fi classic ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK), who gives a good impression as the hick local who proves to be Seagal's greatest asset.