The greatest movie ever made..!

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It is a cartoon of an action movie, perfect in almost every way, and simultaneously terrible in almost every way.On Deadly Ground is Steven Seagal's magnum opus. Yes, he has made better films. Out for Justice, Above the Law, Under Siege, Marked for Death, and Hard to Kill are technically superior films. But if you wanted to sum up Seagal with a single film, then this is it. Seagal directs, produces and stars in this ill-thought-out, high-horsing, heavy-handed mess of a film. From start to finish, this is Seagal.Seagal is Forrest Taft, an ex-blows-things-up-guy turned eco-terrorist who wants to destroy an oil rig. And like all of Seagal's films, with a few tiny changes in music cues and editing, it could be re-created to make Seagal the villain. In fact, in this case, it probably wouldn't even require any tinkering. Forrest has no problem with flat out murdering people from anti-environment scumbags to innocent security and army men who are simply doing their jobs. Face stabbings, neck breaking, crotch kicks — nothing is out of bounds for Forrest.Seagal rants and raves in attempts to justify his violence. He even tells off an Alaskan native (played by non-Alaskan native Joan Chen) for trying to talk him out of rampant slaughter. Like a proper loon, he keeps a stockpile of explosives hidden away in a mountain. For a rainy day. Forrest Taft is a legit maniac. But Forrest is the hero. And so he is allowed to live out the film without being imprisoned. He even gets to deliver a heartfelt speech about pollution and evil corporations in the film's ridiculous final moments.There are many other things that are utterly insane about this film. Seagal literally beats the racism out of a man. He goes on a demented spiritual journey. He beats up an unprecedented amount of old men. The cast outside of Seagal don't fare much better. Michael Caine tries to put on an American accent for about ten minutes and then stops. Billy Bob Thornton stands around doing nothing and then gets blown up. Dr. Cox from Scrubs murders an old man while chewing scenery like it's nobody's business. It was such a delight watching scenes without Seagal, knowing he was behind the camera shaping this ludicrous masterpiece.It's amazing that this was allowed to exist. It is a mess of lofty ideals, a giant ego and angry violence. On Deadly Ground is pure Steven Seagal.

Steven Segal saves the Alaskan wild from Michael Caine's evil oil rig owner in this preachy enviro-actioner packed with fighting and explosions.Segal stars as Forrest Taft (awesomely stupid name), an oil rig fire fighter who learns of unethical shenanigans in the running of Aegis Oil , an evil global conglomerate who purchased land in Alaska almost twenty years ago, and now has just two weeks to start drilling or they will lose their mining rights on the land. They cut some corners and make an unsafe rig. Taft is informed about the faulty equipment by rig foreman Hugh, and becomes the target of the evil Aegis CEO Michael Jennings (Michael Caine). Jennings gets his henchmen, led by MacGruder (John. C. McGinley), to kill Hugh and set up an explosion to take care of Taft. Taft survives the explosion and ends up being nursed back to health in an Eskimo Village by (Masu) Joan Chen.After Taft and Masu leave, Jennings sends his men to destroy the Eskimo Village. Taft has had enough and he is going to break into the oil refinery and blow this sucker sky high! This movie really aggravated people living in Alaskan communities as it portrayed Alaskan oil rigs in a negative light and depicted Alaskan people to be either racist whites or Eskimos, with nothing in between. Segal actually lived briefly in the area while being trained in oil rig fighting and presumably location filming.There is some nice scenery to watch here along with some good fighting sequences and the big explosion at the end is worth the lengthy set-up. But the environmental stuff is so preachy, and the two main baddies, McGinley and Caine are not fighters, so there is no big show down to enjoy. Segal and Caine bring what they always bring to their movies, and the presence of names like Chen, McGinley and Billy Bob Thornton, adds some gravitas to proceedings, but not enough.If you like Segal films, this has everything you would expect in one, and is well made, but the film indulges in simplistic stereotypes and contains endless preaching about the "evil that lurks in the hearts of men" and oil drilling, including a powerpoint presentation right before the end credits, and for many this will kill it.

I'll be frank. This isn't a favorite SS film with me. We can see this is a very passionate effort, and we long for the moment, Seagal breaks a few chops, and crack some skulls. Having to compete again in the acting stakes with heavy weights including Caine as a evil, greedy, and ruthless developer, and some great character actors as his henchmen, he plays EPA agent Forest Taft, with of course, a mysterious background and deadly and handy martial arts skills who takes on this group. Caine who really shines believably in bad guy roles, wants to blow half of Alaska: the environment, so he can do his thing. We all know that attempts on Seagal's life always fail, with most of his killers ending up on the morgue. He's one tough guy you can't kill, and we know what happens when someone draws first blood, before Seagal asks them ever so nicely nicely. Joan Chen, wasted, also an environmentalist, teams up with him, where the scene is set for explosive action, and a body count. What I got off the movie, was the simple message, had bogged it down, or too it may of got lost in what all of it inferred. It was the bogged part I definitely got off of it. Check out even the end credits. Fire Down Below, ran similar paths, but the points were more clearly explained here. I don't hate the movie. I might of just been expecting more action or a more brutal display of violence. This one, I just didn't favor as much as his early or after cinematic ones. It's great though to see Caine and Seagal square off, but in respect for Seagal, it's good to see him express his voice in his directional debut, for which he feels very passionately about, as I said earlier. I hope he's proud of this project and I mean that genuinely. Fun too, with this movie was watching John Mcginley's character and Thornton's as some of Caine's bad asses.

Back in the day I used to love this movie, I always thought it was one of Seagal's better films back when he was at least a respectable action star. I didn't realize at the time how much of an ego-fest this movie really is for Seagal. This film is a bad attempt at making an environmental message out of an action flick, laced with Seagal trying his best to out bad-ass himself at every turn. You know a movie is bad when you have your character flown in to a burning oil rig just to press a button. Anyway Seagal does some work for this oil company which it turns out has been using faulty equipment on its rigs including the newest rig which is about to go fully operational. Seagal finds out whats going on but the bad guys try to kill him, they fail, he escapes, gets in touch with his inner spirit, loads up on enough weapons to orbit Arnold Schwarzenegger (yeah I know), kills a few dozen people, blows up the rig, then ends the film with a nice message about working together to save the environment. Okay, whatever.Like I said Seagal uses every chance he can to show us how much of a bad-ass he can be which is just laughable when it happens. Michael Caine stars as the stereotypical greedy CEO of the oil company who comes off so evil he might as well be a Bond villain at this point. There are a few OK action scenes and a couple of funny one-liners but otherwise a forgettable movie and the only one that Seagal would direct. If you are a die-hard Seagal fan and you have to see this movie, go ahead but otherwise its totally passable.