On Deadly Ground

Steven Seagal doesn't like pollution. It makes him mad. So mad that he has to kick the stuffing out of six trillion bad guys and blow everything up.

Roughly speaking, that's the plot of On Deadly Ground, Seagal's message movie on environmentalism. As screwy as it sounds, the movie kinda works. In fact, I'm starting to like the mindless, PC action genre.

In the tradition of Kung Fu and Billy Jack, Seagal plays a sensitive guy who knows how to handle himself. Early on, he's forced to beat up a coupla dozen racist oil workers. After mopping the place up with them, he gives the boys a pep talk on how they need to get in touch with their sensitive side. His Tire Iron John approach must be effective — from the way they're moaning on the floor, they must be in touch with something sensitive.

Michael Caine plays a villain who doesn't have a sensitive side. He does, how­ever, have a virtual time bomb of an oil refinery and doesn't give a hoot about lay­ing waste to the Alaskan tundra. Unfortu­nately for Caine, he's the kind of movie baddie who employs only bungling hitmen. Seagal survives their attempts to kill him, then manages to meet an elderly shaman and his (obligatory) beautiful grand-daugh­ter (Joan Chen).

Seagal and the shaman have a brief debate about whether he's a bear or simply a mouse hiding from the hawks (remember, we're getting mystical and metaphoric here). Then he has a face-to-face with Mother Earth herself, who sends him on a spiritual quest to save the environment. But neither Seagal nor his fans are much for spiritual quests, so he champions Mother Earth with about 40 tons of (recyclable) bullets and (environmentally safe) high explosive, instead. He's one serious dude when it comes to fighting pollution.

The movie's final minutes are spent with Seagal lecturing the audience about the evils of environmental destruction. Let's give this boy the Smokey the Bear award.

P.S. Don't litter the bus stop with this paper — Seagal may be standing nearby.