I always thought that the early Seagal films are the best and this film is one of them with a fantastic performance from Micheal Caine as the Baddie oil Baron trying to stop his land reverting back to the eskimos... I also think that Steven Seagal did an amazing job directing this picture as well with shots of eagles and polar bears plus beautiful views of the snow capped mountains throughout the film. It's a good movie, but not for everyone. Set in Alaska, Native religious ideas are explored well. It may seem oddball to some people, but I found it touching and enlightening, as it is handled well. There is some good humor, including Billy Bob Thornton as oil rig security with no brain.The movie is filled with wall-to-wall action scenes that don't add up to much, other than that outrageous explosion near the end (which actually feels out of place in this movie!). Michael Caine's performance is very silly, but I am not one of those critics who wishes to attack Seagal for his politics or his motives in directing a particular film, but let's not kid ourselves by denying that he had gotten a little ahead of himself in this case. Nonetheless, there may be something more to this movie than some of us are seeing right now, and there are some good moments scattered about, so I am not going to lower my rating too much. A bit too much swearing, a few too many explosions, and a really brutal fight scene in a bar (which feels unnecessarily exploitative in this context) tip it towards the lower end of the scale for me (at first), but I do think it's interesting what Seagal is trying to do as a director.Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Forget "road House" in the cheese stakes, this hot mess of a movie beats it hands down.1994 was the year two Forrests, Gump and Taft, duked it out for box office supremacy, and the better retard won handily. but don't let that dissuade you from enjoying this supreme example of Steven Segal's monumental hubris. The man who professed to be so attuned to the plight of the Aleut cast Japanese women because actual Aleut women were deemed too ugly, at least in a romantic lead role. It gets better. Modern Aleut are depicted living in skin huts and travelling on dog sleds, until Segal arrives to save their primitive asses, whereby they reveal the Skidoo they have concealed in anticipation of the great day when a Caucasian Saviour will show up to employ this incomprehensible technology on their behalf. This is aggressively stupid and over-the-top racist even for Steven Segal, which is saying a lot. Anyone who has seen "On Deadly Ground" must have struck by the utter ludicrousness of protecting a sensitive eco-system by blowing up an oil well right in the middle of it; anyone, that is, except Steven Segal.Oh to live in a Segalian universe where no problem is so big or small that it can't be solved by beating the sh*t out of it. Strong work from Michael Caine whose unapologetic scenery-chewing constitutes an even bigger environmental threat than the aforementioned oil rig.

Most action stars can be pretty physically appealing for their roles. Not only physically appealing, but also smart. Take an action star like Steven Seagal. Seagal had appear in 5 movies over the last 5 years. His first movie was Above the Law, made in 1988. In that movie, he did a pretty good job, playing the leading role. In 1990, he returned to the big screen for two more action pictures. Hard to Kill and Marked For Death. I enjoyed Hard to Kill, marginally. But, Marked For Death was awful. The following year, he made the movie, Out for Justice, which was kind of silly and predictable. Then in 1992, he teamed up with Andrew Davis, the same director who made Above the Law, Seagal signature film. Under Siege was a good action film, loaded with evil villains and a routine plot that we've seen before. But in 1994, Seagal was given the chance to direct and star in the movie, On Deadly Ground. In this movie, Seagal plays an specialist of oil handling. He is also, as it seems to be an CIA agent. When an evil oil tycoon wants to dominate Alaska's frontier with his fresh supply of oil, he must reason with the locals and persuade the Native Americans that their territory is going to damaged by the oil-drilling. Michael Caine plays the bad guy in this movie, and he hires an group of murderous henchmen to kill Seagal and his colleague, played by Joan Chen. Meanwhile, Seagal eludes Caine's goons by planting explosives and setting up all kinds of booby traps to disable them, even cutting them off on their trail. There are so many explosions in this movie, so many of them, that it got up to a point when I couldn't keep up with the explosions. Also, there are other problems that get in the movie's way as well. Stereotyping of Native Americans in this movie are very unnecessary, and even walking on the same story of when the bad guys disturbs the Native Americans' land. We've seen that a hundred, if not, thousand times in the movies, starting way back into the early days of the westerns. And, the biggest one of them all is the ending of this movie. At the end of this movie, when Seagal finally kill all of the bad guys in the movie,(even Michael Caine), and blows up an entire oil refinery, owned by Caine, he gives an environmental speech about how cars will run on water, garbage, other liquids. I'm not sure if this is correct and if its even possible, but that speech comes way out of left field. Steven Seagal can be a good action star. He even proves that in his other movies like Above the Law or Under Siege. But, in On Deadly Ground, that kind of star power is blown away. (Did I say blown away? I really mean that statement.) What surprises me is that Seagal directed this movie, and he shows nothing exciting or artistic in this movie. He probably thought that the only way to direct an action movie is by putting in a lot of bad guys, gunfire and a whole lot of fiery explosions. Maybe he should've learn from Andrew Davis, the man who directed him in his two other movies. On Deadly Ground certainly does live up to its title, but it didn't live up to Steven Seagal. ★ 1 star.

Michael Jennings (Michael Caine) is the callous CEO of Aegis Oil. They are desperate to finish the latest job or else the drilling rights revert back to the "Eskimos". He cut corners and use defective parts. Forrest Taft (Steven Seagal) is the safety officer who must fight for what's right.Steven Seagal is a weak director. He lacks the vision or the skills. This plays more as a TV movie with an oversized budget. It could still have been watchable but Seagal keeps strutting around like a douchie peacock. This is a terrible vanity project. He wants to be an environmental native superhero. It's all too much.Even Michael Caine is annoyingly 2 dimensional. He sleeks back his hair and act like a super criminal. There isn't much nuance. This is standoff between two giant peacocks as the movie starts with a giant explosion, and the two men standing upright posing while everybody else cowers. It sets the sour tone right from the beginning.