Under Siege
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the video game see Under Siege (video game). Under Siege is also a book by Stephen Coonts
| Under Siege | |
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 Under Siege movie poster |
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| Directed by | Andrew Davis |
| Produced by | Arnon Milchan Steven Reuther Steven Seagal Joel Chernoff |
| Written by | J. F. Lawton |
| Starring | Steven Seagal Tommy Lee Jones Gary Busey Erika Eleniak |
| Music by | Gary Chang |
| Cinematography | Frank Tidy |
| Editing by | Don Brochu Robert A. Ferretti Dov Hoenig |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | October 9, 1992 |
| Running time | 103 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $35,000,000 |
| Followed by | Under Siege 2: Dark Territory |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Under Siege is a 1992 action film in the Die Hard mold. Directed by Andrew Davis, it stars Steven Seagal as a former Navy SEAL who must stop a group of mercenaries, led by Tommy Lee Jones, on a U.S. Navy battleship. It was followed by a 1995 sequel, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. It was rated R by the MPAA for "strong violence, and for language and brief nudity".
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[edit] Plot
A band of ruthless mercenaries, led by psychopathic ex-CIA agent William Stranix (Tommy Lee Jones), board the American battleship USS Missouri to steal its arsenal of nuclear Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. They arrive in the guise of a group of musicians and caterers hired for a surprise birthday party for the captain, and they seize control of the ship with the help of the corrupt and psychotically unstable Executive Officer, Commander Krill (Gary Busey). They plan to sell the nuclear weapons on the black market by unloading them onto a renegade submarine, which Stranix may have hijacked on a previous CIA mission—he had reported it sunk. Several of the officers are killed during the takeover, including Captain Adams (Patrick O'Neal). In addition the whole ship's company (with a few exceptions who the terrorists think are locked into secured areas) is imprisoned below decks in the forecastle. Stranix and his men also take over the ship's weapon systems for defense, shooting down an F/A-18 Hornet.
The only thing in their way is ship's cook Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal), who is really a Chief Petty Officer and former Navy SEAL with extensive special-weapons and counter-terrorism training. He was relegated to his current posting for striking an officer who had gotten his men killed in a botched commando mission during the invasion of Panama. He had lost his security clearance and was said to only be able to serve as a yeoman or a cook. Fortunately, he is a good cook and is making bouillabaisse for the captain's birthday at the beginning of the film.
Under arrest for insubordination to Krill—in the refrigerated meat locker, because the insubordinate Krill can't put anyone in the brig on his own authority (and doesn't want to alert the captain to potential trouble)—Ryback kills two terrorists and starts causing trouble for the boarders, with the assistance of Playboy Playmate "Miss July '89" Jordan Tate (Erika Eleniak), who was supposed to jump out of a cake and strip, but fell asleep in the cake after taking more than the suggested dose of pills given to her by Krill after she complained of motion sickness from the helicopter flight and the ship. Ryback contacts Naval Headquarters in Washington and apprises his superiors of the situation. When he is finally discovered, he frees a small group of imprisoned sailors and proceeds to take back control of the ship, killing most of the terrorists in the process.
Meanwhile, Stranix begins loading the weapons onto the submarine, which departs with Krill on board. A Navy SEAL team is sent to try and take over the ship - but despite Ryback having shut down the Missouri's weapons, a missile from the submarine shoots the helicopter. With the aid of Jordan and his fellow sailors, Ryback uses the battleship's guns to sink the submarine. Distraught and on the verge of a mental breakdown, Stranix orders the remaining terrorists out of the control room as he launches two nuclear-tipped Tomahawks towards Honolulu. Ryback finds his way into the control room, where he is caught off guard by Stranix. One of the two nukes is destroyed by fire from a fighter jet, but the other nuke continues on its course. Ryback manages to disarm Stranix, and the two engage in a knife fight. Ryback slices Stranix a few times, then he dispatches Stranix by stabbing him in the head, then shoving his head into the computer monitor. Ryback then recovers the launch codes and proceeds to disarm the last missile before it reaches the target. The Pentagon officials cheer wildly and call off an airstrike that would have destroyed the Missouri and killed everyone on board.
At the end, the remaining crewmembers are freed from their below-deck prison as the ship sails towards harbor. As he is checked by a doctor, Ryback kisses Jordan Tate as the crew looks on and cheers. The film ends with a ceremony being held on the decks of the Missouri, showing a casket with flag draped, and Ryback is shown saluting in his dress uniform in the final scene.
[edit] Cast
- Steven Seagal ... Casey Ryback
- Tommy Lee Jones ... William Stranix
- Gary Busey ... Cmdr. Krill
- Erika Eleniak ... Jordan Tate
- Colm Meaney ... Doumer
- Patrick O'Neal ... Capt. Adams
- Andy Romano ... Adm. Bates
- Dale Dye ... Captain Garza
- Nick Mancuso ... Tom Breaker
- Damian Chapa ... Tackman
- Troy Evans... Granger
- David McKnight ... Flicker
- Lee Hinton ... Cue Ball
- Glenn Morshower... Ens. Taylor
- Leo Alexander ... Lt. Smart
- Dennis Lipscomb ... Trenton
- John Rottger ... Cmdr. Green
[edit] Production and distribution
Based on an original screenplay by J. F. Lawton, Under Siege was rated 'R' ('Restricted') by the U.S. MPAA. It stars Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, Andy Romano, Dale Dye, Patrick O'Neal and Erika Eleniak and was directed by Andrew Davis. It was followed by a sequel, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.
[edit] Critical and Box office reception
On its opening weekend, Under Siege was an instant box office hit, making $15,760,003 from 2,042 theaters, with a $7,717 average. From there, it went on to make $83,563,139. Worldwide, it made $156,563,139, being Seagal's biggest hit movie to date.
The movie was also a critical success, with many hailing Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey as the villains and gave props to Seagal for cutting his pony tail this time out. Rotten Tomatoes.com currently has a 74% fresh rating on the film.
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- Based on the million-dollar spec script Dreadnought by J.F. Lawton, screenwriter of Pretty Woman.
- Though it was set aboard USS Missouri, very little of the movie was actually filmed there, the ship being still in service at the time. Instead it was mostly filmed aboard USS Alabama, a South Dakota-class battleship (similar in appearance to Iowa-class), at the time already a museum ship in Mobile, Alabama.
- The film makes extensive use of the IntroVision process, a variation of front projection that allows realistic three-dimensional interaction of foreground characters with projected backgrounds without the heavy cost of traditional bluescreen effects. The technique was also used in the films Outland, Megaforce, Army of Darkness and Andrew Davis' The Fugitive.
- The UK release was edited for violence to get a more commercial 15 certificate. Thirty seconds were removed from the film, chiefly from the workshop fight and a shot of Seagal ripping out a man's throat.
- The issue of Playboy shown in the film, in which Erika Eleniak's character is the centerfold, was actually the issue in which Erika herself was the centerfold.
- With over $83 million in domestic box office grosses, it became the then-most successful film ever released that was not pre-screened for critics.
- A shot of the now-retired USS Missouri appears after the final credits have concluded.
- Gary Busey's Cmdr. Krill character was originally scripted to return as the villain in Under Siege 2. Steven Seagal didn't like the idea (he said in an interview[which?] that he was intimately involved in editing the first Under Siege film and knew Krill had been blown up) and paid Busey's promised salary in order to re-write the script to his specifications and "make sure it wasn't a cartoon".[cite this quote]
[edit] Goofs
- Though Seagal plays a Navy chief petty officer, he is wearing the uniform of a flag officer in the movie's poster. (The gold shoulder boards are barely visible.) Curiously, in a scene at the end of the movie he is wearing the correct uniform for his character: an identical tunic with CPO insignia pinned onto the choker collar instead of the shoulder boards.
- The terrorists who wear curly-cord ear pieces for their two-way radios wear them incorrectly. They have them clipped on the front of their shirts, and then put in the ear. The correct way is to have the cable clipped onto the back of the shirt, and then cord goes over the ear, and into it, making sure the cords do not get in their way.
- When Commander Krill reads Chief Ryback's file, he states that Ryback was awarded a Purple Heart with a cluster. The U.S. Navy denotes multiple awards with Service Stars, not Oak Leaf Clusters. (Oak Leaf Cluster is Army terminology, and a Navy Commander would not use the Army term.)
- Although a major plot point is that Chief Ryback was a cook because he lost his security clearance and could only have been that or a yeoman, there should have been other options for him if he wanted to serve onboard a Navy vessel, including some deck maintenance work.
- Chief Ryback says a terrorist's name (Cates) before killing him and escaping from the galley. But Strannix is the only person who ever says Cates' name and Ryback is not within audio range of Strannix when he does that.
- One of the phones used by Tom Breaker during the Pentagon scenes is visibly not plugged into anything.
[edit] External links
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