Under Siege (1992)

Written by CinemaSerf on May 27, 2023

"Krill" (Gary Busey) is the rather narked XO on the battleship USS Missouri who sees the captain's impending birthday party as an opportunity to team up with "Strannix" (Tommy Lee Jones), seize the ship and extort a fortune from the American government. The girl (the very annoying "Jordan" - Erika Eleniak) coming from the cake he expected, the fact that the ship's cook is a former SEAL he did not - especially when this knife-wielding sailor starts to make his presence felt and a battle royal hots up. The scenario is pretty far-fetched, but to be fair to Steven Seagal as the chef with attitude, this is a fair action adventure film with plenty of combat, kitchen devil action and pyrotechnics to compensate for the pretty woeful dialogue and acting - especially from Busey - that only really works when the enthusiastic TLJ is letting loose the dogs of war. There's no jeopardy to speak of, the ending is never really in doubt - but I still find this, periodically, an enjoyable bit of machismo escapism that passes the time ok.