Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

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Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory movie poster
Directed by Geoff Murphy
Produced by Arnon Milchan,
Steve Perry,
Steven Seagal
Written by J.F. Lawton (characters),
Roger Hatem,
Matt Reeves
Starring Steven Seagal,
Eric Bogosian,
Katherine Heigl,
Morris Chestnut,
Everett McGill
Music by Basil Poledouris
Cinematography Robbie Greenberg
Editing by Michael Tronick
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) July 14, 1995
Running time 99 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $60,000,000 (estimated)
Preceded by Under Siege
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is a 1995 action film set on board a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles. Directed by Geoff Murphy, it stars Steven Seagal as the ex-Navy SEAL, Casey Ryback and is the sequel to the 1992 film Under Siege also starring Seagal. The film was produced by Steven Seagal himself with Arnon Milchan and Steve Perry.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal) has now retired from the Navy, and is now a chef at the Mile High Cafe in Denver, Colorado. Ryback is taking his niece Sarah Ryback (Katherine Heigl) on a trip to Los Angeles to visit the grave of Ryback's brother, who was Sarah's father. They board a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles.

Travis Dane (centre) and Penn (left)
Travis Dane (centre) and Penn (left)

As the train proceeds through the Rockies, two people wave down the train on the track. The driver and an engineer step out to consult with the two people and are shot dead. It is then that a group of mercenaries led by computer genius Travis Dane (Eric Bogosian) and mercenary leader, Penn (Everett McGill), hijack the train. Dane was a satellite programming expert who had worked on a top secret satellite laser weapon called "Grazer One". Dane had been fired because of his eccentric ego.

Dane has since hooked up with Middle Eastern terrorists who have offered him one billion dollars to use the satellite to destroy the Eastern seaboard by targeting a nuclear reactor that is under the Pentagon. Dane uses Grazer One to blow up a Chinese chemical plant in order to demonstrate Grazer One's capabilities to his investors and at the request of one investor, Dane destroys an airliner carrying the investor's ex-wife.

A big problem is that officials can't stop Dane because they can't locate his headquarters. As long as the train keeps moving, his location can't be fixed. Casey Ryback, who has discovered the plot, decides to take matters into his own hands. Ryback enlists a porter named Bobby Zachs (Morris Chestnut) to help him go after Dane. From here on, Ryback kills the mercenaries one by one as he confronts each of them in various stages of the film, using various guns, melee weapons, and even firebombs.

Penn holding Rybacks niece Sarah at gunpoint
Penn holding Rybacks niece Sarah at gunpoint

Finally he confronts Penn, who is aware of Ryback's past. A lethal knife fight ensues between them. Ryback disarms and kills Penn by breaking his neck, afterward quoting, "No one beats me in the kitchen." He then finds Dane who is about to depart in a chopper hovering over the train. When Dane informs Ryback that there is no way to stop the satellite, Ryback shoots him, the bullet destroying his computer also. Dane collapses through a window and seemingly dies after falling from the train off of a bridge. The control of the satellite is restored at the Pentagon where it is set to immediately self destruct.

Meanwhile, the train collides with an approaching freight train (carrying several gasoline tank cars) head on, resulting in a massive collision and explosion. Ryback manages to spectacularly escape from the train and grab the rope ladder hanging from the chopper above. Sarah and the porter who have taken control of the chopper reel Ryback in. Dane, who is revealed to have survived the gunshot, the fall and the collision has also caught the ladder and attempts to climb onto the helicopter. Ryback slides the door shut, severing Dane's fingers, causing fall into the explosion below to his death. Ryback then informs Pentagon that the passengers are safe as he had previously detached the passenger section from the rest of the train.

The film ends with Ryback and Sarah paying their final respects at her father's gravestone.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Critical response

The original Under Siege was Seagal's best reviewed film, but its sequel received mixed reviews. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a three-star rating in his review, while Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "the action upstaged the actors." Most critics and fans alike were disappointed in the film's choice of villains in comparison to the first movie.

[edit] Box Office

At the box office Under Siege 2 opened in 2,150 theaters and made $12,624,402 with a hefty $5,871 average for the weekend. At the end of its domestic run it totaled a $50,024,083 in receipts and $104,324,083 worldwide. In comparison to the first film and with its $65 million budget, it was seen as a minor disappointment.

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • At the time of the film's release, Steven Seagal told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show that producers had originally hired Gary Busey as the villain. When Seagal told them that Busey's character had died in the first film, producers replaced the character, but still had to pay Busey because he had signed a pay-or-play contract.
  • Jon Peters left from being a producer after learning that Gary Busey's character was killed off in the first film.
  • The UK version of the film, although rated 18, was cut for violence by 2 minutes.
  • In the scene where Bobby Zachs (the porter) attempts to restrain Sarah (outside the broom closet), Sarah uses a version of the Aikido technique Nikkyo
  • Steven Seagal's character, Casey Ryback, uses an Apple Newton MessagePad prominently in key scenes during the movie, especially its ability to fax documents.
  • The railroad passenger cars were built especially for the movie by Colorado Railcar Company and are still in existence today.
  • The scene with the destroyed industrial facility in China features unused footage from On Deadly Ground (1994), which also stars Steven Seagal. In On Deadly Ground, the building is the burning Aegis Oil facility.
  • Travis Dane's signature line, "Chance favors the prepared mind," is a phrase originally said by Louis Pasteur.
  • The countdown timer blip sound effect on the computer used by Eric Bogosian (Travis Dane) is a blip sound from a Motorola-brand pager.
  • Travis Dane's notebook computer was a Toshiba T4600C which featured a 33MHz 486 Processor, 4MB of RAM, and a VGA display.
  • Filmmakers pioneered a new technique that enabled them to film all the interior train scenes (practically all throughout the film) in the studio. Tennis balls glued on the studio walls were used as reference points to allow computers to insert footage of Colorado scenery, even when the camera moved around.
  • During initial test runs for filming of the external scenes, sparks from the locomotives caused flash fires along the railroad. The locomotives had to be fitted with spark arresters before filming could begin.
  • In the final scene at the cemetery, we see Seagal's character is now a full lieutenant instead of a chief petty officer.
  • As Tom Breaker indicates the monitor with details on Penn's history to Admiral Bates and Captain Garza he calls him a 'soldier of fortune freak'. Dale Dye, who plays Captain Garza actually worked for Soldier of Fortune (magazine) in real life.
  • The lead engine, GP9 1810, had previously starred in Runaway Train.

[edit] External links

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