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Let’s start with the story; Seagal is a troubleshooter for an oil company in Alaska. Of course, Seagal is at one with the spirit of the Inuit people who are being reamed by the oil baron (played by a totally slumming it and ridiculously made-up Michael Caine) and only Seagal can save them (and us) from environmental ruin. But he won’t because he’s being paid a lot by the oil cartel. Kind of like George Bush Jr.

That is until Seagal finds a crusty old oil-worker has been killed and mutilated (we get to see the mutilation, as if we needed to) with bolt cutters. And to make matters worse for Seagal, when he does find his pal’s body, it’s in amongst a shitload of ‘about to explode’ dynamite. Of course he only just escapes, is brought back to full health by the Inuit folks, then returns to the base to destroy everything.

In the meantime, he defends the honor of an old drunk native guy in a bar by punching a racist oil worker in the face repeatedly until the oil worker announces that he will “need time to change… I just need time…” Oh lordy, who wrote this shite? That’d be Ed Horowitz, who’d never written anything previously and has done another Seagal movie since, and Robin U. Russin, who has written nothing else of note. Could it be these two were old Seagal buddies? Nooooo, how could I even suggest such a thing? I mean, just because the pony-tailed one directed and produced and starred in this self-serving mess, that doesn’t mean he had a couple of buddies write it for him, does it?

At one point early in the film, Seagal’s character says the words, “For 340,000 dollars I'd fuck anything once.” Never have more prophetic words been spoken. This movie is one of the finest examples of cinema whoring I’ve seen.

Everything about this flick is hokey, to the point of hilarium. Seagal wanders about in native American themed clothes that honestly make him look like the Electric Cowboy when the power goes down, and his pseudo-spiritual scenes involving the native folks are honestly boggling even to a guy like myself who considers himself culturally open to such things. When Seagal starts jawing on about spiritual this, spiritual that, then practically rips a limb off a native girl for daring talk about ghosts (“Will your ghosts come down and give us access to technology that’s been repressed for seventy-five years? Will your ghosts blow up that oil rig?”), you’ll honestly laugh your ass off. Then you’ll laugh your mother’s ass off. There’ll be two asses on the floor. Just like when George Bush Jr and Dick Cheney are in congress. BOOM!

So anyway, the bad guys call in the mercenaries, specifically a group consisting of the loud old drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, a few fat bearded guys, a native guy who “knows that area” and a very green Billy Bob Thornton. Of course, they all end up as little splats on the ground as Ponytail Steve takes them out one at a time. This happens even after this inspiring piece of dialogue by the bossman merc; “He's the kind of guy that would drink a gallon of gasoline so he could piss in your campfire! You could drop this guy off at the Arctic Circle wearing a pair of bikini underwear, without his toothbrush, and tomorrow afternoon he's going to show up at your pool side with a million dollar smile and fist full of pesos. This guy's a professional, you got me?”

Yeah, I got you.

When everything is said and done we’re subjected to a final five minute speech by Seagal about how we’re all about to die, and to his credit it’s not a bad speech. Of course it’s based on just awful science and a lot of assumptions, but that doesn’t mean it won’t leave a surprising mark on you. But not a big one. It didn’t win the Razzie for Worst Director and get nominated for worst actress, worst song, worst script, worst actor and worst film for nothing.

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5816&reviewer=1
originally posted: 01/08/03 19:41:46
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