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| From http://toloka.hurtom.com/photos/0912261542484848_f0_0.jpg |
Dir. Steven Seagal
USA
Film #22 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema
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“What does it take to change the
essence of a man?” Steven Seagal says
in his sole directorial film. The irony is that the same man who made this film
is the same one who makes the straight-to-DVD films of now, the one mocked for
a persona beyond parody and with controversies in his personal life that add to
the absurd nature of his career. These words spoken by Seagal in the film are gravely potent in hindsight, as while he
still has a pretty healthy career in his current position, one asks whether
changing his own essence would have drastically changed to trajectory of his
image. This entire review could just destroy the film, but I want to resist it
for most of the length. That Seagal’s
character is called Forrest Taft, at
one with the trees, is going to make this difficult. But that On Deadly Ground tries to have a
serious message to it means that I have to be serious with it as well. It’s a
film that doesn’t settle with merely emphasising its environmental message
through a plot depicting the follies of mankind – from the disaster movie to
sci-fi – but to make itself into a polemic which also has to cater for an
action film crowd. The results are justifiably infamous but also how one’s
presentation of noble and true ideas can be off-putting and self harming to the
cause, a problem few have learnt from even in this decade.
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| From http://i2.listal.com/image/2473226/500full.jpg |
Environmental agent and corporation
lapdog Forrest Taft (Seagal) gains
back his humanity when he realises his boss Michael Jennings (Michael Caine) is planning to use
defective equipment for his new oil rig to retain a contract from the Inuit
community and the Alaskan government. When Jennings plans to bump Taft off, he
pushes the man into staging a one man battle in the name of Mother Nature. An immediate
issue arises for me, viewing this the third time for this review, that may only
be mine but is a clear one, that even if the film does at least raise the
problem itself, we are still viewing the prevention of environmental pollution
and damage through as equal amounts of damage and destruction on Taft’s half. Clearly
under the motto of causing harm to prevent far greater amounts of it, one has
to still admit that, because Seagal still
has to make an action film, the usual trope of the genre of giving out the law
through one’s own hands in context of preventing the woodlands from being
burned away, while noble, shows cracks in the mindset. For some reason causing
this much physical harm to another person to protect Mother Nature, or even
animals in some contexts, brings out an uncomfortable moral conundrum since it’s
not to protect another person. Many of us feels this goes too far, in real life
contexts such as with animal rights campaigners as well, even if their beliefs
are ones we all agree with, as I believe in too, because of the nature of
violence as a destructive force. Films have played with this idea very well
with concern on the good side’s behalf or with having villains who actually are
fighting for a noble cause of protecting the ecosystem, even if it means
eliminating the whole of mankind of the face of the planet. Seagal was never a subtle man however,
and this is not Princess Mononoke (1997)
which justifies its environmental message with its subtlety. In Out For Justice (1991) he crashed into
each place he needed to be and battered everyone into submission, and has
continued to do so in his work now. He can fight, outsmart everyone who crosses
his path, even improvise a gun silencer out of a plastic fizzy pop bottle of
all things, but he cannot convey an important message without making it feel
like he is punching you in the face. The existential question of his I quote at
the top of this review is from a bar scene when Taft plays a violent game of
slaps with an obnoxious drunk, punching his in the stomach until he pukes to
making him a changed man immediately. Seagal’s
desire for bringing a new age, mentally awakening philosophy of protecting
nature and moral grit feels out of place, and dubious, when placed with the
morally grey, and far more vivid, world of action cinema. The message is
obvious but is made contradictory against the messenger saying it.
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| From http://megalife.com.ua/uploads/posts/2010-04/1270568969_on-deadly-ground.avi_snapshot_00.15.48_2010.04.06_19.03.20.jpg |
As a director, Seagal actually had the chops to make
something as good looking as other films releases that year. His problem that
faulted him was that he needed to make more than a ‘good looking’ film but a
good film in general, compounded by the fact that, even if you ignore the
quandaries of the plot’s key idea, he sacrificed the aspect of himself that
made him popular for his audience. He has scenes in this where he shows his
quick and violent martial art skills, but in comparison to the films that made
his name, this film trimmed the main pull of its material – his prowess – far too
much. This is more important since for me, his style is more of an acquired
taste, not as elaborate as Eastern martial arts films, or of his rival Jean Claude Van Damme, and in danger of
not being able to save a really bland film. Reducing it further means that it
comes off as less likely to save a film like On Deadly Ground even if there are still explosions and deaths depicted
onscreen. Worse is that in Seagal’s
attempt to create an important message he makes the same mistake as ‘important’,
Oscar candidate films have that he patronises minorities, in this case turning
the Inuit community, who would suffer the most from Jennings’ greed, into a
merely a plot point for a mystical journey for Taft. Said mystical journey adds
to this problem as it involves gratuitous, spiritual dream journey, female
Inuit nudity with a Vaseline smeared camera lens, and Seagal fighting a bear only to be propelled down a waterfall in a
transition comparable to how your character jumps from panel to panel in the
videogame Comix Zone (1995). That Taft
in a later scene dismisses the journey to stop Jennings with guns and his fists
makes the whole segment pointless and makes the Inuit community even vaguer.
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| From http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/3/32/OnDeadly005.jpg/600px-OnDeadly005.jpg |
The film is unintentionally humorous
at times, a horrible thing to say especially since it has such an important message,
but it’s unavoidable. Its cast is probably what adds to this silliness. Seagal is his usual cocky but serious
self that is always in danger of making him obnoxious in comparison to his
action hero peers, his egotism sadly very clear even before his
straight-to-video work. The rest of the cast do not come out of the film well,
with the sole exception of Billy Bob
Thornton, in a small role, who has a couple of scenes where he quips about
ordinary things and seems to be there for the sake of it. Joan Chen, who has a filmography that includes working with the
acclaimed arthouse director Zhang Kei Jia,
in the fascinating meta-documentary 24
City (2008), and the awful 1995 adaptation of Judge Dredd, if left to spout vaguely mystical dialogue and stand
in the background, squandering her physical beauty and acting ability. R. Lee Ermey brings his trademark use of
abrasive phrases from Full Metal Jacket
(1987) with him, but doesn’t get a lot of screen time and also, along with Michael Caine, has to explain why Taft
is as dangerous as he is within the final
act of the film when this fact is obvious. Caine and John C. McGinley
cannot justify their performances in this film unless they find the utter
amusement in them looking back at the movie. Trying to be the hard case
henchman, in a very tight shirt I must add, McGinley
looks like he has a wooden pole strapped to his back and plays a character who,
for all his threatening talk, is completely useless and bumbling. His tenure on
Scrubs (2001-2010) does not help as
you can see ticks in his performance to suggest that, if this character had
more than that pole to prod him up, he would start belittling his minions in humorous
ways that may have improved the villains’ chances of winning by kicking the
members of their group up the arse for their incompetence. Caine, as well known for his infamous choice of film roles as much
as iconic films like Alfie (1966),
goes forth and gladly chews the scenery, obvious dyed black hair, an accent
that veers from Texan (??) oil baron to his own iconic voice, and an attitude
that would make him unwanted at anyone’s birthday party if he wasn’t so rich
and powerful to take it over. You don’t need to put a sign on him saying he’s
evil, he shouts that point across as you would creep up to attach the sign
around his neck.
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| From http://seeexq.com/screenshots/1081.%20V%20smertelnoi%20opasnosti.jpg |
And that this review can descend
into this sort of talk really drives home a sobering point into my heart that
this was an attempt to help humanity, exemplified by the final scene of Seagal talking about protecting the environment
to a video montage of appropriate scenes, and it is unbearable to put up with
and insulting to the environmental cause instead. The awful fact is that,
nearly twenty years on where environmental concerns are the same and this sort
of campaigning by Hollywood actors is still prominent, the attempts by these
icons and celebrities to come to us the viewer and spread words of wisdom to
improve ourselves is patronising and hypocritical. This month I have
encountered on YouTube a subversion of
recent campaign by Hollywood stars like Julianne
Moore and Jeremy Renner, pushing for
tighter gun laws in the United States, with images of their work showing them
blasting people full of holes and into viscera with firearms in violent actions
scenes, deflating their words, face to camera in sombre black and white, with
the judgemental ferocity of the hand of God. That their campaign is in response
to the recent school shootings makes it no longer a laughing matter, and for
all my jokes in this review, seeing Seagal
campaign for environmental awareness through a bloody shootout in a home
kitchen gives off the wrong message without the recent events being an influence.
Action films, dismissed as mere brutality, can convey far more potent and effecting
thoughts on morality, as can horror and other genre films, while these serious
messages that are placed within them or in ‘important’ cinematic documents die
the year after their releases in people’s minds. And Seagal didn’t learn from his mistake, dragging Harry Dean Stanton in the mire with him for Fire Down Below (1997),
another environmental action film, and making himself look worse. No matter how
good one’s intentions are, the folly of men is that they both let their egos
affect the ideas and that they try to turn them into action films lacking even
a really engaging story to begin with.
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