Under Siege

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the video game see Under Siege (video game).

Under Siege
Under Siege movie poster
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 Brothers
Release date(s)	October 9, 1992
Running time	103 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$12,000,000
Followed by	Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Under Siege is a 1992 action film in the Die Hard mold. 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.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Production and distribution 3 Trivia 4 Goofs 5 External links

[edit] Plot

A band of ruthless mercenaries, led by psychopathic former CIA agent William Stranix (Tommy Lee Jones), board the American battleship USS Missouri to steal its arsenal of nuclear missiles. They arrive in the guise of a group of musicians and caterers hired for a surprise party for the captain, and seize control of the ship with the help of the corrupt Executive Officer, Commander Krill (Gary Busey). They plan to sell the nuclear weapons on the black market. Several of the officers are killed during the takeover, including Captain Adams (Patrick O'Neal), and the whole ship's company (with a few overlooked exceptions) is imprisoned below decks.

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.)

Under arrest for insubordination to Krill, Ryback escapes and starts causing trouble for the boarders, with the assistance of Playboy Playmate "Miss July" Jordan Tate (Erika Eleniak), who was supposed to jump out of the cake and strip, but fell asleep in the cake due to anti-seasickness pills given to her by Krill. Ryback contacts Naval Headquarters in Washington and apprises his superiors of the situation. When a helicopter-borne SEAL team is wiped out trying to retake the ship, 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. Jordan Tate starts out as a completely naive airhead starlet, with no street smarts or toughness at all, but she follows Ryback through the action, saying "The safest place on this ship is right behind you", She watches what he does and listens to his explanations and advice, which are given with no more delicacy than a boot-camp recruit could expect from a drill instructor. In the process she learns to be a fairly effective soldier. At one point, a terrorist gets the drop on Ryback and aims an automatic weapon at him. He doesn't see the girl behind him, and she blows him away, without fainting or vomiting. That earns her a kiss in the final scene.

[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] Trivia

• Based on the million-dollar spec script Dreadnaught by J.F. Lawton, screenwriter of Pretty Woman.
• Though it was set aboard USS Missouri, none of the film was actually filmed there. Instead it was mostly filmed aboard USS Alabama, 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 third installment of the Die Hard movie series was to have been set on board a ship, but Under Siege beat it to the post.
• 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.

[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 IFBs, 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.

[edit] External links

• Under Siege at the Internet Movie Database