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.

Forrest Taft works for Aegis Oil. Corrupt CEO, Michael Jennings, doesn't care whether or not oil spills into the ocean or onto the land, just as long as it's making money for him. Jennings is almost finished building his new oil rig, but the problem is that if he doesn't finish building the rig in thirteen days, the land rights will be returned to the Eskimos and the Alaskan government. Jennings finds out that Taft's best friend has a disk that contains information about defective equipment on The rig, so he sends out his goons to murder him. When Taft tries to interfere, Jennings tries to kill Taft. But an Eskimo woman named Masu, who introduces Taft to her father Silook, the chief of her tribe, rescues Taft, and hi shiny coat.....Seagals directorial debut marks the moment when he became self aware, and started to preach more on screen, rather than kick butt. His golden era came to an end with Under Siege, and his silver era began with this, and ended with Fire Down Below (which also sounds like an STD).But it's still a load of fun, Seagal started hi strange dress sense with this, and if you can swallow all the hocus pocus, and mythology stuff, its a pretty decent action movie.Caine is on best bad guy duties here, shouting all the time and generally being vexed about every little thing, and is the best thing here, the film is always fun when he is on screen.The fight screens are as good as always, even though we have to endure 'people changing' speeches every now and again, and also, Seagal has a tendency to go 'bang!' When he hits someone every now and again.But instead of ending the film straight after the Die Hard on an oil rig type finale, Seagal treats us to a little lecture about oxygen and electric cars.All in all, its a fun little movie, just a tiny bit preachy every now and again...

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.

This movie was made after the success of "Under siege" – Seagal's best movie to date. The producers allowed Seagal to make a movie based on his screenplay and even gave him the directors seat . Seagal is also the main producer of this movie. If there is one good thing about this movie is the big budget. When it comes to Seagal's movies only "Under siege" , "Under siege 2" , " Exit wounds " and "On deadly ground" really feel like a professional movies . Others , even "Nico : Above the law " , did feel like a low budget made-for-TV movies. The money here allowed for many explosions , nice costumes and views , and for casting Michael Caine ("Get Carter") ,Joan Chen ("The Last emperor") , Billy Bob Thornton ("Sling blade") and R. Lee Ermey ("Full metal jacket").The movie tries to send a message about protecting environment and one could appreciate Seagal for that . Still , I doubt that this movie will convince anyone on the subject . I find it incredibly ridiculous that in this movie Seagal fights for environment blowing everything up . I'm pretty sure that blowing oil refinery won't cause any damage to the environment. There is also one incredibly preachy speech at the end of the movie . Funny thing – in the original version of the movie the speech was supposed to be 30 minutes long ! "On deadly ground" also wants to teach us respect towards Eskimos . Once again – not bad idea , but poor execution . The scene in the bar is quite rightfully among the worst movie scenes EVER made . "What is the essence of man " ? . LOL . Hilarious . So deep… And why does Seagal's character is called Forrest Taft ? Because Gino Fellino ("Out for justice" ) wasn't dumb enough name ?One could wonder what Michael Caine is doing here . I guess the paycheck really was big … Anyway, Caine here gives a rather hammy performance and it's definitely not one of the best moments in his career. Joan Chen is actually OK. Thornton and Ermey are forgettable . Seagal is , well , Seagal . One thing that is noticeable here is the birth of Seagal's huge ego . It's one of his first movies when from time to time movie characters tell the viewers how INCREDIBLY AWESOME Seagal's character is . It was supposed to make him cool , but it ends annoying and pathetic.Seagal shows that he isn't able to direct decent action scene and it's a nail to the coffin for the movie.Even some of Seagal's most loyal fans didn't liked this movie . It's not hard to understand why. I give it 1/10.