Warner
Bros. Home Video | Review by Dan Taylor
I love reading review quotes
on film boxes.
I
was still a little sleepy this morning when
I grabbed FIRE DOWN BELOW, the latest entry
in the Steven Seagal filmography. A filmography,
mind you, that's expanding as quickly as
the action star's waistline.
A quote, prominently
featured on the back of the box, read: "The
best Steven Seagal film since UNDER SIEGE."
Which means it's better than the cartoonishly
violent ON DEADLY GROUND, the underrated
UNDER SIEGE 2, and the thoroughly unwatchable
THE
GLIMMER MAN. Alright, I'm game, bring
it on Big Steve.
For those of you that have
seen ON DEADLY GROUND (and if you haven't,
you simply don't know what you're missing!),
I can sum up FDB in five words or less:
"White Trash ON DEADLY GROUND."
Instead of that film's oppressed Eskimos
we have inbred hillbillies. Instead of a
deadly oil refinery we've got toxic waste.
Instead of an evil oil baron (Michael Caine)
we've got an evil senator (Kris Kristofferson).
And the similarities go on, and on, and
on.
Unfortunately,
the jaw-dropping, over-the-top, paint-the-screen-red
mayhem of ODG is replaced by a kinder, gentler
violence that has a sinister, sped-up quality
to it. Perhaps, and this is only a supposition,
ol' Steve can't move like he did in the
old days. The days of ABOVE THE LAW or OUT
FOR JUSTICE when a broom handle or cue ball
wrapped in a sock was more than enough to
clear the streets of stereotypical punks
from Central Casting.
For those Seagal completists
in the audience (and I happen to be one
of them), this has all the hallmarks of
classic Seagal: conspiracy theory dialogue;
sacrificial lambs; silly romantic interest;
soft-spoken Seagal; lines like "How
do you want it?," which would be just
as at home in an all-male porno; and an
action hero who's incapable of realistically
holding a gun! This makes two duds in a
row from Seagal, so we can only hope that
this year's THE PATRIOT (a two-word title)
is a return to form.
