Debate still rages as to whether the 1980s or 1990s was the real Golden Age for action cinema, and it’s an argument that can never be definitively settled.
While it doesn’t come up all that often when discussing the best efforts from the latter decade, 1992’s Under Siege has remained a firm favorite among genre aficionados, which might have a lot to do with the fact it’s a wonderful example of how to overload a movie with cheese without descending into outright self-parody.
It’s comfortably the best entry in Steven Seagal’s entire filmography, and if the story was set on land, there’s every chance co-stars Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey would have inhaled every ounce of scenery within a ten-mile radius, such is the glorious overacting on display.
Seagal plays implausibly-named chef Casey Ryback, a former Navy SEAL forced back into action after terrorists seize control of the USS Missouri with a plan to hijack the ship’s nuclear arsenal. Harrison Ford was so impressed with Under Siege that he hand-picked director Andrew Davis to helm The Fugitive, which went on to land an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, so it turned out to be quite the calling card in the end.
Headshot and The Night Comes for Us‘ Timo Tjahjanto is in the midst of developing an HBO Max remake, but until that day comes, Netflix subscribers will continue to revisit the O.G. Under Siege, which they’ve clearly been doing after FlixPatrol revealed it’s charted on the global most-watched list.