Unclear and Present Danger - Under Siege

Episode Date: May 28, 2022

For episode 16 of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John discuss “Under Siege,” 1992 action thriller directed by Andrew Davis and starring Steven Seagal in what is clearly his best role. We talk about Seagal’s career, Hollywood’s view of the American military in this era of filmmaking, and the strange, almost left-wing politics of this movie in particular. Jamelle also attempts a bad impression of Seagal. It’s a good time.“Under Siege” is available for rent on Amazon and iTunes.Our logo, as always, is courtesy of the great Rachel Eck, who you can find on Instagram.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieLinks from the episode!New York Times frontpage for October 9, 1992Steven Seagal’s infamously unwatchable appearance on Saturday Night Live.Scene in “Austin Powers” where Austin learns the Cold War is over.

It was the final voyage of America's mightiest battleship. Imagine this arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands. Now, a team of terrorists have taken over. Wake up the president. But there's just one thing they didn't count on. The cook. They're coming! Are you like some special forces guy or something?

No, I'm just a cook. I'll see you in hell, Senator Boy! Under Siege. Welcome to Episode 16 of Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write a substack newsletter called On Popular Front, and I'm working on a book about American politics. in the early 90s. And today we are talking about the 1992 action thriller Under Siege,

directed by Andrew Davis, who previously directed the package, another unclear and present danger film, and starring Steven Succo, Tommy Lee Jones, Elena Eleniak, and Gary Busey. Here is a very quick plot synopsis. Discruentled ex-CIA operative Stranix, his assistant Krill, and their group of terrorists seized the battleship with nuclear blackmail in mind. They've planned for every contingency but ignored the ship's cook, former Navy's CEO Casey Ryback, an error that could be fatal.

If you would like to watch the movie before you enjoy this conversation, you can find it on iTunes and Amazon. It's available to buy or rent on either. Okay. I did that stupid Stevenson. I'm already having trouble to keep it. I did the very stupid Stevens to go voice. I'm going to be doing a lot of that.

I apologize. Before we get started with everything for, you know, as regular listeners know, we go and look at the New York Times from page for the day this was released. This was released on October 9th, 1992. So, John, would you like to say a little about that day? So here, what do we got going on here? So Bond politicians vow cracked down against. violence. There was a terrible riot in Germany shortly after the reunification where there was

violence by far right, well, they're literally Nazis, against immigrants to Germany. And it was some of the worst racial violence in Germany since the war. It was very upsetting. and this is a political response to it. Can they focus on Vietnam reviving debates of the 1960s? This was the whole Bill Clinton draft dodger thing. Draft Dodger thing, yes, exactly. And, you know, they, it's funny that, you know, that Vietnam draft dodging became, was such a huge deal in presidential politics. but I don't think we ever really had a bona fide Vietnam vet become president

because McCain didn't become president. And, you know, W kind of had a weird, his own draft dodgy thing with the Air National Guard, which actually came up in this election, but people were saying, well, Bush's son didn't serve either, et cetera, et cetera. poll shows tight race in Texas and a sign of vulnerability for Bush so it looks like Bush is going down which he did um bill sent to Bush as a 100 second Congress wraps of its work tumultuous two-year term taxes energy water projects and health some vetoes are likely dissent into partisanship well you know the election was coming up so pretty much

no the the democrats were not in the mood to hand uh bush any favors and there was lots of acrimony as it writes here about the clarence thomas needle hill confrontation which happened the previous year towards the end of the previous year um what else walcott poet of caribbean is awarded the nobel prize dark walcott got his Nobel prize um Gorbachev there's a very alarmed surprised shocked picture of Gorbachev mouth agape and it says Gorbachev barred from his office in Moscow and the latest round of conflicts between Mikhail Gorbachev and Poros Yeltsin, Mr. Gorbachev arrived yesterday's office building in Moscow to find police blocking the entrance. I don't even know what his position was at that point because the Soviet Union had ceased to exist but he had some kind of nominal

position and Boris Yeltsin was was they had a pretty acrimonious relationship. They cooperated on some big things, but they had a pretty good criminalized relationship, and this is evidence of California decided of doctors, Canadian suicide. That was a big thing in the 90s, something to do with Honda's auto production. Anyway, you know, this, again, you know, what I notice is sort of as the 1992 wears on and gets the end of the year, the headlines kind of calm down, but at the beginning of the year, there's a lot more unrest. And I think that, but this is, you know, again, like the last time, I mean, every day in history is obviously unique. But if there's a sense of like what a newspaper look like from this era that doesn't have an extraordinary piece of news that, you know, people would remember today, this is, this is pretty much it.

So, you know, interesting things. You know, so I opened up the, the, so I opened up the bill sent to Bush. story just to kind of see how it progresses. And it's interesting because we don't, I don't think we think of the 90s as being some sort of fundamentally or completely different era of politics than the one we're in. But it is in a lot of ways, for example, this paragraph here, the water resources bill, comma, furiously attacked by Senator John Seymour, Republican of California, which is just, I mean, there is not going to be a Republican senator from California anytime soon. I think it would be a long while before that happens.

But it was relatively recently when California became a solid Democratic state. This happened basically within our lifetimes. Prior to that, you know, Ronald Reagan to California, Richard Nixon to California, prior to that California was, if not a swing state, then, a Republican leaning state for reasons that have a lot to do with its history and sort of the California being sort of like an outpost of the early Republican Party, its western outpost. And there's a lot of stuff there, but it's just, it's interesting to think about a political landscape where California is a Republican state where there are Democrats still from the

deep south serving in Congress. uh that it won't be we're two years away from the 1994 election which really is kind of the final the fell swoop for the southern democrat at least the white southern democrat um after that and you still had zell miller after that zell miller was yeah that was like he was really the last one right right um but we're still it's like the the early 90s really the tail end of the mid-century kind of like political coalitions they're finally crumbling in the late in the early 90s and they they crumble I mean they they've more or less crumble completely in the mid 90s it's sort of interesting that it's not that it's not really that long ago and it's for me a reminder that political coalitions um can change in

dramatic ways like very quickly uh in ways that you know can some is often obscure by the fact that the party are so-called Republican and Democrat, regardless of who actually composes them. Yeah, absolutely. And, like, you know, basically the, you know, Clinton's an interesting figure for a lot of reasons, but one thing he did was kind of, he sort of did two things at once. I mean, he got some of the Reagan Democrats, so, quote, unquote, but he didn't revive Southern Democrats in the completely old Dixiecrats sense of the term, but he definitely

like kept the southern wing of the party alive for a few years. You know, I was just listening to, I listened to, for my book, I listened to lots of C-SPAN, and I'm just listening to C-SPAN Collins, and it's like these old middle-aged white guys from the South, like calling in angrily defending Bill Clinton from attacks by Republicans. and, well, and other Democrats, but I was like, damn, like, this is really funny to think that this was a big part of his constituency and, like, people who really, who are Democrats and not liberals, but liked Clinton and believed what he stood for. So, yeah, I mean, he was in a way, like, keeping a dying coalition going, sort of starting

a new one, but interesting transitional figure. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's talk about Under Siege, a movie I have seen. seen a bunch. John, what's your experience with this movie? So this is the first time I've ever seen this movie in my life. I know, of course, I've heard of this movie. I know what this is. I've seen it in the video store as a kid. I kind of wanted to rent it because I had a ship on it or whatever. It's got a battleship on it, like, because there's a battleship in the movie that attracted me as a child. I never got to see it. Um, so I watch it for the, and then, you know,

not really my kind of movie these days. So then I, but this was my first time watching it. And it's really very stupid. I mean, look, I don't want to, it's, it's, it's enjoy, it's like an enjoyable action flick. It's pretty, I would say like, it's a weird movie. There are things about it that feel very, like, low budget or like, I'm like, I can't believe they, like, did this. But then I'm like, actually, the production values on this are pretty high. I don't know. so I mean I enjoyed it but I was like damn this is stupid and but it was it's it's like one of those

movies that gets like it's stupid to the point of being strange like there's not exactly like surreal but I'm like you're watching and you're like what the fuck is going on with this movie man like that was so that was sort of my experience I was like this is a this is a strange there's something strange here um by virtue of how stupid it gets uh and you know great I mean dude if you if you just tune out the rest of the movie and how dumb it is like the action sequences are pretty good it's it's it's surprisingly violent like I was I was shocked by how violent it was like I got a guy gets his throat ripped out yeah I guess his throat there's horrible knife fights a guy gets a fucking like they drop a like a like a metal eye beam through a guy oh yeah like I was really shocked right I thought it was like okay it's an action movie but it's gonna be a little sanitized. I was really shocked with how violent it was. And it was almost like gross. I mean, I don't mind violence and movies, but I was like, this is kind of this is like, there was a big concern at this era about violence and movies. And now I kind of get it because I was like,

damn, this is kind of next level. It is cartoonish. You know, this is the era of mortal, I mean, I think Mortal Kombat comes out like maybe a little bit after that. No, around the same time. But like that almost cartoonish, but bloody violence was like a big thing in the early 90s. I remember like it was a big kids loved it, but parents were very concerned about it. So I guess this is like, yeah, it was the age of the squib. I mean, there's a, there's a great, one of my favorite kills in this movie. I, no, let me, let me begin by saying, I have seen this movie like maybe two dozen times. I, you know, I have mentioned before that my parents were in the nature.

Navy. And so this being a Navy movie meant it was kind of just like on at my house a lot. My dad liked to watch it. And so I, you know, by way of just that, I've seen this a bunch of times. And then as an adult, it's very much comfort food for me. Right. Whenever I just want to put something on that is mindless so I can, so I can work, right? I just need something on in the background so I can do some work. I will put on an under siege just because I know it's going to happen. And I can get and look up at the parts that I like. And so on that note, to go back to what I was saying, one of the great kills in the movie is when some sort of poor private first class is like shot in the back, but with a machine gun. And you know this movie has like real money behind it because he must have like a dozen squibs on him that all go off until you have like the blood packets go everywhere.

And it looks, it looks pretty good as far as movie blood goes. but that's sort of like the level that the movie operates on a lot just sort of kind of really gratuitous like when people die it's very gratuitous like it isn't it isn't it's rarely sort of you know off screen or or done in a way to kind of like respect sensibilities people people get got in this movie and it kind of just moves it along which I appreciate in an era where stuff is today where stuff is often very very sanitized and aiming for that PG-13 rating right did this kind of PG 13 what was this rated I think it was rated R I want to say it was rated R it's weirdly like it's rated R but it's like barely a movie for adults you know what I mean right right right I mean yeah I mean it has like it has like it has like a naked lady and it very much yeah they kind of thing that would appeal to a teenage boy right some of the weird stuff is like you know Stephen Segal is not a not a guy with a lot of humor about himself But the movie attempts to have some levity and some jokes, and it just sort of like doesn't work with him in the scenes.

It's like not believable that he would want to like dance with the people who he's working with in the galley. But I think we should talk a little bit about Stephen Seagull because this is, I mean, this was his biggest film. I mean, he is basically at the peak of his fame at this point. um his his filmography isn't especially deep uh here but he had been his previous four films or so were all pretty well received and his um i believe his first one his first uh his first sort of foray into the action film world above the law uh which is legitimately pretty great it has pam greer and sharon stone uh it it's um directed by andrew davis so this is is his second collaboration with Andrew Davis, or rather, understitches. But at this point,

at this point, he is, he is kind of a legitimate star. And this is like a problem because Stephen Seagall is a profoundly self-serious and self-absorbed guy. And so becoming famous essentially ruins him as an action star like this is his last this is the last movie he's in where you can say it's watchable after this he has his directorial debut on deadly ground which is a weird environmentalist movie and it's terrible um then he has i think he wrote this too no he didn't write this he only directed and produced it um so he has a deadly ground which is bad Then Underseeds 2, Dark Territory, which is also terrible, although it does star as the villain Eric Bogassian, who is great. Yeah, he's great in it.

But otherwise, a terrible movie. He has a bit part in a movie that will be on this podcast, which is Executive Decision, starring Kurt Russell. And Stephen Seagull shows up very early on and then is quickly dispatched, which I think actually made him legitimate. admittedly very angry because if you watch under siege, you'll notice, and this is a thing throughout Seagull's films, that he can't lose a fight. That's like his rule. He's like Vin Diesel. Vin Diesel isn't allowed to lose fights on screen. He doesn't let it happen. And Segal likewise won't lose a fight on screen. So him getting dispatched very early on in an executive decision made him unhappy. And then there's the Glimmer Man also quite bad. Another comedy in which he just does not

work. And it's after that, it's kind of, you know, it's kind of just a lot of direct-to-video trash. Yeah. I mean, now he's like, lives in Russia and he's like kind of trot, he has like a Russian citizenship and he's like buddies with Vladimir Putin and he like gets trotted out for propaganda things. He has, I think he has like legal trouble from sexual misbehavior accusations of various sorts um but yeah he like he i've seen him do like videos with putin and it's just kind of sad like he kind of seems like a broken down guy a little bit um but yeah i mean like he's not a good actor he can't he can barely act let's face it and like he's very funny for like most action stars like bruce will it's like he can deliver like the one liners you know

like and you're like okay it's like a clever little one liner after you like kill a guy or whatever and but but like Seagal's like just pretty much like fall flat and like yeah he's I mean his basic problem I mean even even the most egomaniac egomaniacal actors still have to be able to suppress that or like take direction or do or should have like have a little bit of selflessness in order to act but or be able to summon it Like, you mentioned Bruce Willis, who recently retired from acting because of cognitive decline, which is very, very sad. But Willis, you know, in his, after he got big, could be kind of a dick on set and could be kind of like big-headed and egomaniacal. But if he was in a project that he liked and with the director that he respected, he could sort of turn on the kind of like selflessness needed to be a decent actor, a good actor.

but Stephen Segal just doesn't have that whatsoever and you can get if you watch this you can totally tell that like he was probably a a nightmare to direct yeah um well he's got yeah as you said he's like super self-serious he's got the problem like his problem is just like he's a super dumb guy who thinks he's very smart and deep and that's just like a terrible combination like he thinks he's like spiritual now was that when did that start like the whole like I'm a martial like was that always in the background he was like that was always in the background that was always his always his thing was he was like akito and you see it in this movie in some of the fights where he's like yeah ikeido slapping guys around like that's the whole the whole like that was like such a big like dumb guy thing of this era which was just like well actually like this martial art like you used your enemies like strength against them and that's like it's like really built into the movie like him he's like I'm an unassuming guy like I'm a cook like that whole thing where he's like he's like actually like I don't care about glory like I'm very happy to do this

humble job like I'm not that into the military I just happen to be like the ultimate killing machine of the Navy who's been like hidden in the it's just such an absurd premise I was like saying to you before we started like this feels like it was written by an eighth grade sometimes because it's just like he's like well he's a cook except he's secretly a navy seal and like he kicks total ass like anytime he needs to like the premise is absurd um and like also like i think where the movie starts to take off into truly psychotic territory from being like being like is when the villains are like the villains are like the villains of the movie are like It's Gary Bucing's Tommy Lee Jones, who are, like, you know, love to get outrageous performances, but it's just like they, yeah, that's, they're like, there's something so, like, anarchic and almost clownish and circusy about their performance they give, which I think adds a lot to the movie, frankly, I think the movie would be kind of flat without them.

But, yeah, like, this is where it starts to maybe get into some political territory is, like, where all of these people exist in the order of things. it's like Stephen Seagall doesn't want to obey and his evil double who's also like Ups angry about like he's got this role he's like I'm disillusioned with the military I don't like being a killer anymore and Tommy Lee Jones's character is a former CIA guy who kind of is like resan disgruntled former CIA employee krill their names are totally absurd krill who is Gary Busey is like a officer who's really punctilious but also nuts and like abuses his subordinates and then like doesn't feel recognized so he gets in with the plot is to like steal a nuclear weapon from nuclear weapons from the ship so yeah it's like that's one thing

it starts to boil up in me for where this like what this is saying about society if you can say that. And the other thing I thought was, did you catch the, um, the Dick Cheney cameo? Uh, you mean when the, when the president arrives early on in the movie? Yeah, they're like showing him on the ship. Yeah. And the, Dick Cheney's in the background. Yeah. I think, okay, the other thing about the movie is like this movie's, this movie is about a ship that's being decommissioned, like the Missouri, the USS Missouri was a Navy battleship that was, um, you know, this is a World War II era ship. Uh, and they were put back into, they were kind of mothballed and like put back in service for the Gulf War. I think kind of just to show

off, like I don't think we really need them. Like, I think they just kind of wanted to show off like as much firepower as possible. So I mean, you know, battleships are something from a previous age as a giant ship. I mean, even by World War II, they weren't that useful anymore like yeah the battleship is more or less design as it's like a flagship and it's for ship to ship combat and sort of that's just not a you're right by by in the atlantic theater which wasn't really you know there are ships ships were necessary for protecting allied supply lines and such from you know german submarines but in the pacific that was a war fought with aircraft carriers like that's yeah

Yeah, exactly. Battleships, yeah, battleship very much lost their utility in World War II. And so, yeah, by the end of that war, certainly, it exists, right? Sort of like it's a, you know, people are stationed on it. You do exercises, but it's not really, as far as American naval doctrine, the battleship fades away and the aircraft carrier becomes the primary platform for power projection by the U.S. military on the open sea. Yeah, so it's like a very

much an old symbol of power and the movie kind of dwells on that a little bit and it was the ship that as they talk about Pearl Harbor because the 15th anniversary of Pearl Harbor was around the time this movie was made this is the ship that the Japanese surrendered

on it was built after Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor just kind of showed that aircraft carriers were more important than battleships because a bunch of Japanese aircraft carriers and their planes sunk a bunch of American battleships. So, yeah, it's kind of got a weird post-Cold War vibes in the sense that it's about, like, well, he's sort of, it's, you're given to understand, sort of getting towards retirement.

And this is an image of American, or a symbol of American power from another time. It's like, yeah, we're entering a new world of peace and what's going to happen next to what's going to happen next to this ship. Now it's going to be a museum ship. So, yeah, the movie has some kind of thought or, like, is located in its time of the end of a certain era of American military power. And I guess what its message is, like, people, I mean, if you can even say that, I feel silly saying it, is, like, like,

The villains are totally mercenary, right? They're just trying to steal the nukes. They have, Tommy Lee Jones gives this, like, ideological speech, but it's, like, not real. He, like, signs off, and he's like, oh, they're going to think I'm insane now. Like, it's a cover for his need to, um, to, uh, you know, to sell the nuke. So it's like, okay, the ideological conflicts are over. People are just mercenary. this fired CIA agent is disillusioned and I guess the thing that separates him from

like doesn't he have this dialogue with Seagall where Seagal's like we're the same you like of course like every action movie has to have that that that I think it's that seagull's character's backstory is that he his entire unit was killed in Panama um oh right so so I guess straight ex terminally Jones's character was um Sigel's command officer or in the past either in Panama or or somewhere else I think it was in Panama where Tommy Lee Jones's character was Seagull's commanding officer so that's how they know each other oh okay okay yeah and like he he's but he's like they they put their disillusionment in different ways like Seagall's like way of

dealing with it is like I'm just going to be an insubordinate cook and then get my time done it and then the other guy is like I'm crazy so I suppose the message there is like look just uh you if you cooperate and keep your well not exactly keep your head down you won't you you can kind of like save your dignity you don't have to go crazy and try to take over a battleship and sell its nuclear weapons i don't know but um there's like clearly two different ways of coping with the end of the cold war and the disappointments of america's empire the movie's kind of weirdly i'm not going to to say left wing at all, but it's definitely like not that militaristic in the sense that

it has both these characters, like being disillusioned with American military, being in the American military, it's not like raw, raw about it. And Panama, which is kind of forgotten is like, was a horrible imperial adventure. It got forgotten because of the Gulf War and also because of the Iraq War. But when I was growing up in the 90s and getting into left wing politics, before Iraq, the second Iraq, I mean, the first Gulf War had a lot of people who on the left who were against it. But, you know, it was a war. Iraq was, under Saddam was arguably the aggressor. So it didn't outrage people in the same way. But Panama, you know, we just sort of invaded because we could. I mean, they called the invasion just cause, which was a weird play on, you know, just cause.

or just just cause and you know really a classic almost early 20th century something like jonathan cats your friend would write about you know this kind of like making the world safe for capitalism um just incursion so the movie sort of like yeah has a kind of um negative there's something cynical about the movie it has a certain cynicism about the military a certain cynicism about American power, even though being kind of really in love with it at the same time. But yeah, I think that that's something I picked up from it. It's just like, ultimately, he does the Navy's work.

He saves the ship. He saves the world. But there is, there is, he's insubordinate. He hates the military. He just wants to cook. You know, he doesn't really want to have, you know, he doesn't want the glory of the military and so on. and so forth um but yeah there's a there's a there's a cynicism that's kind of like pre-political let's say but like definitely something about anger or disappointment with the end of the cold war right right

um yeah just just since i i i try to note this every time we talk about a movie um this was it was a big hit it made 156 million dollars off of a 35 million dollar budget oh yeah it's Andrew Davis's next film after this is the fugitive, which is another huge hit. So just want to note that, as for the politics of the movie and going to some of the points you made, John, I mean, the thing that really does strike me, and I think this is very much a product of being,

you know, having been a teen during the post-9-11 years, is that even if it's pre-political, even the cynicism about the military, right? sort of the officers are portrayed, which is not an uncommon thing. Officers portrayed being kind of incompetent, but the officers are portrayed as venal and incompetent. Even the commanding officer of the ship of Missouri, the captain, is sort of like a doddering old man, not someone, you know, particularly impressive.

Steven Seagull's character seems to respect him, but it is not, the captain isn't, you know, he isn't a James Earl Jones type. right? Someone who kind of immediately commands. Yeah. Respect. The, you know, the various crewmates and members of the crew are kind of just guys. Like they aren't particularly heroic. One guy, you know, he's sort of openly cowardly when they're trying to fight back. He's like, you know, I just do laundry here. I'm not anyone special. And so it's sort of, it's both the cynicism about the military. Sort of these aren't, these aren't the hero troops of the post-N-11 era.

These aren't sort of the, the heroic soldiers of sort of a more traditional propaganda film. They're just kind of guys. As a parenthetical, I kind of think that's why my dad likes this movie, because I think that stuff does ring true to him. sort of like recognizing that, you know, people in the military are just people. It's just like schmucks. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, but yeah, there's no, there's no political content behind you. It's more just sort of observational. Uh, and it's not really trying to say anything. I think, you know, to the extent that there is anything, um, political, it is this, this theme that we've seen again and again in these movies, which, which, which, you know, is sort of the end of ideological conflict unleashing all kinds of, you know, nakedly venal and, um, uh, and, uh, and self-interested, um, action, right? Sort of like, you know, the, the end of the Cold War, the decommissioning of this

warship, um, is an opportunity for Gary Busey's character. I wish I could do a Gary Bucy voice because he has lots of great lines in this movie. Um, but an opportunity for Gary Busey's character just to sort of like indulge his most, you know, his, his, his, his, his, his, sort of, uh, uh, really indulges quest for recognition, right? Like he's, he's, he wants, um, he wants to be recognized as an important person in some way, shape, or form. Uh, and this gives up an opportunity to do this. Tommy Lee Jones's character, which I should say, this is our, I think this is, this is our, this is our second Tommy Lee Jones movie, our third one. Um, third, yeah.

He's been in a lot of these things. And he's, you know, it's so funny that in this part of his career, he's kind of just playing wild-eyed crazy people. And then pretty much with men in black in a couple years, he pivots completely. To like the serious, wise man, yeah. But Tommy Lee-Jose's character, like you said, doesn't really have an ideological motivation.

He is resentful against the military for, as he says, trying to kill him. He was a special ops guy who got loose and then they tried to neutralize him, so he wants to strike back for that reason. But otherwise, he's just up to make money as well. And there's something, right? There's something, I mean, there's something very 90s about that, right? Sort of the 90s as an era of the end of ideological conflicts

and everyone just trying to, like, make a buck, trying to be the best capitalist they can be since, after all, capitalism won. You know, it's the end of the Cold War, Austin. um yes and uh i think we should do that movie on this podcast um i think so too uh and i think we should do men in black too as i as i say i'll say that loud i think i think you're right i think you're absolutely right um but um it's it's the having having won the conflict with the soviet union now ever it's everyone trying to either write out whatever obligations they have left as a Stephen Seagull's objective or make a quick buck. And in this case, making a quick buck means hijacking a battleship

into nuclear weapons and trying to sell them. But I think that ethos is really everywhere around American culture at the time. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, and also just like the notion of people kind of in a you know tending to your own garden being in a humble station like a a a cook and not seeking out like historical glory and things like that and just kind of going along and then but he has to be heroic because of the circumstances he put in um you know what's funny weird about this movie that made me think about like this is the weird let's bear with me here this is like the reverse of Hanford at October because

in Hunford at October the officers try to defect and the ship the cook on the ship is a KGB guy right and tries to sink the ship and fight fight back against the against the um against the defection

uh and in this movie it's from the point of view of the cook I wonder if they got the idea from there or whatever or it's just the obviously like the most humble figure on the on the ship that would be less like the least likely to be some sort of rather spy or navy seal um but yeah it's almost like you know uh you can you can reimagine um hunt for october being made from the soviet point of view where the hero of the movie is the kgb officer on board who you know goes super commando and tries to stop the uh defection of the nuclear submarine to the united states by the evil officers on board so that just kind of thought the kind of like

reversal of the picture um you know was interesting to me and like on 4 October i i was like oh yeah they didn't just give the submarine they give the submarine loaded with all of its nuclear weapons like I kind of like went over my head at the time I was like oh yeah I had like a full complement of nuclear missiles on board um you know I think that's you're saying that I mean you're absolutely right that in the Soviet in the Soviet version of hunt for out October like in this imaginary Soviet version I mean the the the plot of under siege would be almost it perfectly matched it right you don't just have evil officers you have evil greedy capitalistic officers Right, exactly.

You have, you know, you have that, you know, obviously the ship's cook is, it's very humble. And there's something, you know, there's something of a, I don't know enough about Soviet film they call this a tradition, but certainly, right, in the battleship Potemkin, in that film, the, the revolt begins on the, below deck with, with the cooks and with the, the lowliest members of the crew. So, I mean, you have an homage there in this imaginary film we're thinking of. But also the other cast of characters, right? Sort of like the old retired gunnery officer, like everyone who is involved in rescuing the ship is of a lower station than the officers than the terrorists. And so, yeah, this, you know, you're right, there's this funny way in which you can, you can, You can imagine this as a socialist version of the Hunt for Red October story with, you know, I don't know if there's really a Soviet equivalent to a Stephen Segal, but. Well, now he is the Soviet equivalent to him.

But what's some square-jawed, you know, Russian actor, you know, whispering lines at all the time. No, that's really, it's really interesting. I should say, just thinking about the movie as a movie, this is clearly one of the many diehard rip-offs of the early 90s, kind of putting die-hard in a different kind of location, enclosed location. And so for that formula to work, you kind of need to have the protagonist be something of an every man. And I think so the cook position works for that. There's not really much else. You're sort of like locked in by the concept of a diehard on an X to having that kind of character. But again, I mean, part of the issue with the movie to go back to Segal is that just like he is he is so palpably arrogant that it doesn't quite work.

You know, he can't really quite sell being humble. no he can't like you don't believe that this guy is like the cook of the shit like you're like what the fuck you're talking about like you don't believe like oh yeah he's just the chef and then it turns out you know like you know so the the the whole conceit of the movie in that sense is like yeah he doesn't he's not like oh yeah he's just a proletarian guy in the in the mess and you know then he has it doesn't it doesn't make sense so um yeah but there is that weird like part of the movie where it's a sort of an uprising of the it's an uprising of the you know they literally break out of the hold and like it's all of this kind of rag-tag team of um you know lowly people on the ship

people who are not necessarily high-ranking officers and kind of have menial jobs on the ship and then they kind of take matters into their own hand so yeah there's a there's i think it'll probably be a little too far to say that under siege weirdly enough I mean, imagine this would be the crazy, like, Jejerk counterintuitive thing to say is, like, actually Hunt for October, like Under Siege is a more progressive movie than Hunt for October, because Hunter October is about a middle class or bourgeois CIA agent, you know, stealing a Soviet ship.

And this movie is about a working class chef and the working class uprising on this ship against these evil capitalists which would be funny but you know I still love Hunt for October is an actually good movie and like part of his team is the one woman in the movie Erica Elaniac who

plays playboy playmate who comes on board Jordan Tate who comes on board to entertain the guys like the whole conceit is that Tommy Lee Jones comes on as part of a crew to entertain

the captain but they're actually secretly this kill this assassination team um and like her role is pretty pathetic i mean first of all she's supposed to be a love interest of stephen segal they have zero chemistry it's like negative chemistry i mean you never think that they're going to end up together at all and then in a case at the end it's negative chemistry and yet somehow it's still hornier than most modern action movies i don't well you know i will have to take your word for it because i don't watch that many i mean that's true it is it's funny that there's not a lot of but i i've heard this and i i've seen some examples of it that they're very sexless and very don't have a lot of romantic um you know things going on but yeah i it's really pretty sad

and like there was some story i was reading the wikipu page it was like time uh stephen seagal was like not happy with how like flat her role was and that she was just like stuck on to the movie for sex appeal and uh um oh she was actually uh missed she was actually a playboy playmate this actress um and like wanted her to have a little more depth as a character uh i don't really believe that story for a bunch of different reasons and also like her character i mean it's not it's pretty uncomfortable it's not as exploitative and gross as it could be but it's it's it's pretty like pretty cringe but um her character isn't like really developed she's just like his weird little sidekick and then they kiss at the end um which you know there's a lot

of weird gender and sexuality things going on with this movie which maybe we don't need to get it to in great detail but at one point um Gary Busey is in drag I mean he's in drag and he goes to kill the captain He opens a door and the captain's like what is going on And then he gets shot in the face Yeah he's like in drag for the party that they're having And then he says like do I need a psychological dude It's a little like he's a little like a Joker you know

Joker's character with the what's it called Joker? The Jack Nicholson Joker No the other one not the most recent one the one who died Oh, Heath Ledger. Yeah, the Heath Ledger. So he, he, um, so there's the, you know, a lot of that stuff probably has an age that well, uh, in terms of the movies dealing with gender at all. I mean, there's, there's a, there's a straight up F bomb in the movie. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's given by the villain. Um, so I guess that makes it better. But I was like, damn, like they would not include that in a movie anymore. That was so, but it was so, like, it's not. good but like growing up and and because kids were watching movies like this it was just like people use that term like so much yeah and like into the into the 90s and it was like you know like it's shocking to hear it now and you're like Jesus Christ I can't believe it I mean it really is it is shocking to hear it like I yeah it's it's it's disappeared from mainstream language I mean

I'm sure there are, you know, Chuds who say it in private or whatever, but like, in terms of just like something you would hear on a television show or on the street, it's kind of just completely, it's largely disappeared. And so it's, it is, you know, I mentioned I've seen this movie a ton, but every time I come to that line, it just like, I was just like, what the hell? It really does. I don't even think they would like make a gangster say that in a movie these days. No, it's pretty much avoid it.

It really, I mean, it really has. at least in, you know, film media taken on in the United States, taken on kind of the same vibe as like, you know, the C word for, right, you know, yeah, for a woman's genitalia. You just, it's not something, it's not something you say. It's like, you know, it's, it's, it's terrible. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a real taboo now, which it wasn't that. It was like, it was like a bad word, but it wasn't a real, it wasn't really a taboo.

It was like, it was, it was like an insult that you could, you could throw around. Like, if you're, it was like a tough guy insult. So, you know, it's probably good. I mean, it's definitely good that that's now taboo. But, yeah, it's, it's weird to watch this movie and be like, okay, well, it's in the mouth of the villain. I think if you go back about five or ten years from this movie, you have protagonists of movies calling people that and it just being okay. But like this movie, at least, like, okay, the villain is the one who would use that kind of language. And I think it's meant to sort of indicate along with his, I mean, this is sort of also the bad politics of the movie is like, I think it's sort of meant to indicate that he's got issues, you know, psychologically around that.

Because like he says that and then he dresses a drag. And I think that it's, they're trying to hint to the, to the audience like, this guy's, this guy's. got something going on with him um which you know we've talked many times about the homophobia uh that goes into coding um hollywood villains and we've seen it in in other places so like yeah i mean you know those things don't age that well um otherwise the movie is not terribly offensive i guess um but uh i don't know i i i you know like this kind of action movie i think i think i'm just like fucking jaded on the violence and stuff like that so i'm just like it's not that like i've seen a million movies like that

where it's like people going around shooting and stabbing and i'm like yeah i've seen die hard which i think is better movie i've seen stuff like that so i'm just like i've seen a million movies where people people get shot so like what is this uh what does this really have to offer anymore. I mean, like, again, it's got its kind of fun, um, uh, aspects that it's like, you know, from another era and it has, uh, it has, you know, nostalgic appeal in that sense, but, uh, yeah, I mean, like, I don't know. You know more about this than I do. Like, among connoisseurs of this kind of action movie, where does this land? Like, is this one of the classics? I wouldn't call it a classic. I mean, so,

Stephen Segal in the world of kind of action movie officinados, no one thinks Steven Seagull is like a top guy. He's very much like a B tier, even C tier guy. But as far as his movies go, this is like, this is probably the best of his movies. And so it kind of gets, it's sort of like it's the A tier movie of like a C, a B minus C plus action star. Okay.

So this is like his best work. Right, right. And sort of to compare him kind of a guy at a similar tier but is generally, I think, more well-liked and more respected, is Jean-Claude Van Dam, especially of that era. And kind of the big difference is that like Jean-Claude Van Dam also a notorious asshole at the time, sort of just like a huge jerk, but was sort of had a bit of silliness about him. And, I mean, not for nothing, but it's like genuinely sexy, right? Sort of like is a very handsome, attractive man who was aware of the fact that women really loved him. And so that kind of gives his movies, his movies have a kind of fun and levity and campiness that none of the Seagull stuff has. No, they kind of don't have.

So like a movie like Bloodsport, which I love with John Claude Van Damme, has like a whole sequence of just like, you know, I think it's just as this bare ass. and sort of like it's like yeah that's what you go for those movies for right and it's it's it's um even if van dam is clearly like very proud of his like perfect body yeah it's also like a certain level of vulnerability to be able to sort of like let yourself a male actor letting themselves be kind of the object of the female gays for a little bit um and that's just like something seagal would never do uh assuming i mean this is sort of like you know even if seagull were sort of in the same position in terms of like desire for him which he was not you know you alluded to sexual assault allegations and kind of like he was he's a creep yeah he's like he's like

he's palpably a creep um but well you you can kind of get that i mean like not not you almost get that on screen like with his discomfort like playing opposite a female lead like there's just like some kind of like weird inability to relate to the opposite sex that comes through Yeah. But it's for that reason that even if the Van Damme movies aren't, I mean, they aren't like masterpieces or whatever. I mean, for a while, they're just made the same movie a bunch of times. But even Arnold is way bad.

Like, he makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like fucking Lawrence Olivier. Like, much like funnier. better actor right well right you um so yeah segal segal doesn't really rank highly i just one more note on kind of the politics of the movie such that they are um and that is i mean so the the movie ends there's a big showdown right sort of like they sabotage the uh they they they they they sabotage the sale of the nuclear weapons they um uh segal beats stranics beats Tommy lee Jones's character and a little knight, a very silly looking knife fight that I think is very funny, um, and kill Strannix and then they stop, uh, Stranix had launched two Tomahawk

missiles at Honolulu and so they stopped those missiles as well. So they kind of, they save, you know, they save the world basically and happy ending. And then the final scene is Segal's character, Ryback, in his dress whites, um, uh, during a funeral on, on the bridge of the ship on the deck rather um of the battleship and sort of saluting um kind of him reclaiming his navy uh pride or whatever and in for as much as there is some sort of like there is a kind of cynicism even like a little naturalism about how the military is it is at the end of the day very much sort of like the american military is great that like the heroes uh you know the the lowly sailors and cooks and, you know, and folks, they, they carry the American military

on its back. They're the real heroes. And look at this ship and these people and all of their, you know, glory. And I think, I mean, I think we're still very early into the post-Cold War era. And I think this movie, in that way, in that little glimpse at the end, it sounded very long see maybe 30, 45 seconds, I think you see kind of the triumphalism that's still very much part of American culture, even if it's not necessarily, you know, that triumphalism doesn't help George H.W. Bush win re-election. But it's very much part of American culture and the kinds of anxieties about what comes next for American power, what are the future threats facing the United States, that doesn't, I think in popular culture, doesn't really begin

to set in for, you know, a little while, although it's beginning to be there, right? This is the era of the, you mentioned, you know, the, what I'm going to call it, the panic over violence and movies. There was a similar panic over violence and video games. Mortal Kombat is a good example, but I was just watching this little, you know, document, YouTube documentary on the making of the Super Nintendo and there are clips from like, you know, cable news or broadcast news, roundtables from parents who are like, you know, the video games are ruining my children's ability to learn. So there's, you know, not just the video

games, the Japanese video games are ruining my children's ability to learn. And there's also, you know, there's also panics about, you know, the morose. of the American people, you know, uh, George Atsubby Bush, um,

President Bush gets into basically public spats with, uh, two fictional characters, Murphy Brown. Yes. Over, over her being a single parent on the show. Yeah.

And then Bart Simpson, right? There's a whole, like, national panic over our, is Bart Simpson ruining the youth? Yeah. Um,

yeah, that's funny. You should say that. Yeah. Some of those anxieties are, are there. domestically but I think in movies like this they haven't quite shown up yet you know but you're right I mean there was a real concern with culture at the time where I mean this was the

birth of the culture wars and I'm writing about this right now which is just like well there's the Murphy Brown thing day and quail Murphy Brown and then there's sister soldier moment not long after this sister soldier's a real person but she was a but it happened on the level of art and culture and not really I mean she was kind of a political figure but like it's interesting that the media that politicians felt more comfortable taking on you know something in the realm of culture talking about rap music or an rapper than you know the actual policy issues which were actually you know first of all hard to deal with and hard to get people to pay attention to so yeah there there was an enormous amount of concern put into cultural issues at the time in a similar way

we have now but i think actually in a uniquely um anxious way as you mentioned um thinking about that too it's like this movie is like the end like you're talking about john claude van dan we were talking about arnold schwarzenegger i mean their movies persisted to the 90s but like the era of the really macho action star rambo but not the first first Rambo but the later Rambo's kind of like those kind of die out in a certain way like the lone guy taking on the world movies I mean they but or the really muscle bound like wins every fight kind of action star right sort of dies outcation of America on screen yeah exactly I mean like I guess Jason Bourne is more like vulnerable because he has a disability but like yeah like he he's like not um

He's not exactly quite as a tough guy in the same way. So, like, there's certain Reagan-era thing ending here and being reversed a little bit, but you're absolutely right. Like, they get kind of ideologically slotted back into American triumphalism because they're like, oh, you, you didn't like your job in the mess. Well, but you save the day. And now you feel proud to be an American again, right? Like, and you're back in your military uniform. So everything kind of gets put back into its proper order at the end, which I thought was a good observation. So, yeah, not a subversive movie after all.

Not a subversive movie, but still an entertaining one. And I think this is a good point at which to wrap it up. So, you know, I'll say for my part, I obviously like this movie a lot, having again seen it, kind of entirely too much. But John, would you watch it again? Probably not. I mean, you know, like there's a certain movie, like I watched, you're going to think I'm crazy, but I watched sneakers again like after we did our episode on sneakers. I was watching with a friend who had never seen it before and I think that like makes it more fun to watch movies multiple times, but I don't know. Maybe if it was on TV and I was like channel surfing and I just,

just like had nothing else to watch and I just didn't want to think about anything I would do it but I didn't like it that much I didn't even like think it was that much fun I mean I liked I like naval stuff I like the ship I like the you know that kind of thing I like this obviously it has a submarine in it which we didn't even talk about but I like submarines but I don't think this one's for me um it's funny that you mentioned sneakers I feel like sneakers is for you what this movie is for me right it's just like it's just like cream of wheat it's like comfort food like you know like spoon baby like or here you know revealing our respect to regional origins grits right grits yeah right right exactly so yeah I mean that's that's pretty much how I feel

but I'm not going to pretend like it is especially good but it is something that I just really enjoy. Yeah, yeah. And it's like got, it's got nostalgic things and it's just like, I watch this movie when I was a kid, it brings me back there. I get that completely. But because I don't have those connections to it, probably if I watch it when I was young, I would feel the exact same way.

But I don't have any sentimental connection to Under Siege. So for me, it's just a Steven Segal movie, which I'm glad I can see now because now I get when people are like making ironic remarks about it, like I can know what they're talking about. I have to pretend. I'm sure I've lied about seeing this movie. I'm sure I've been like, oh, yeah, the siege. Now I don't have to lie anymore, so I'm grateful for that. Yeah. Okay. That is our show. If you are not a subscriber, please subscribe. We're available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, and Google Podcast, and wherever else podcasts are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and review. It does.

help people find the show. We say this every week, and it remains true. You can reach out to both of us on Twitter. I am at Jay Bowie. You are. I'm John Gantz. Oh, sorry. No, I'm at. I'm at Lionel underscore trolling. I will probably cut this. I'm not going to cut this. Sorry, sorry. No, no worries. You can also reach out to us over email at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week in feedback, we have an email from Jeff. It's titled, A Thought on Sneakers. Thanks for putting together such a great episode on sneakers. Mike's description of his feelings about the movie matched mine exactly. As Slate said on its 20th anniversary, it may not be the best movie ever made, but it's one of the most charming.

One aspect that has always struck me is the feebleness of the U.S. and Russian governments. The United States has no ability to make the codebreaker itself and no leverage of a Marty's crew. They're basically reduced to begging and bargaining for the box, and then, at the end, don't even realize they've been duped. The Russians, meanwhile, have nothing but history and classical music. They can't even protect their own people. I see this as tying not just to the end of the Cold War, but to the collapse and confidence in the U.S. West government after Vietnam, Nixon and Carter, combined with the mediocrity of H.W.'s' presidency. In addition to the new left's loss of aspiration that you talked about, there's a sense

that the mid-century trust in government expertise is over. The government isn't saving homes, it isn't fighting Russia, it isn't even spying competently. It's just plain catch-up. The real powers and sneakers aren't world governments but non-state actors. The information war is presented as something beyond the control of the governments. It is didn't make the box, they can't use the box, and they're not part of the real fight for the box. And the ideological stakes of Cosmo's ambitions are much larger than anything the U.S. or Russia are up to. The NSA is just casting about for a way to do a little spying, while Cosmo has a real plan to tear down the world economy. Compare that to Hans Gruber just three years earlier.

In Diehard, ideologically motivated terrorism was a red herring and a punchline, and the real conflict was a traditional one between cops and robbers. Among its many pression aspects, we could think of sneakers as one of the first movies to take seriously the rise of non-state actors in the threat of transnational terrorism. Thanks again for an excellent discussion, looking forward to future episodes. Yeah, that's great. I mean, that's very intelligent and completely correct, and I wish we had emphasized that a little bit more, but I think I completely agree. And, you know, again, that's connected both to the, you know, sorry, use this word, the neoliberalism of it of the 90s, and also, you know, the certain new left inflected version of it, which was, you know, non-state guerrilla type actions were the most

effective form of politics. And, you know, the people who ultimately are going to inherit the world are people who are rebels from the 60s and not, you know, people who have been in the establishment. No, agreed. And, you know, I'll also say that the point about the ideologically motivated terrorism and sneakers being a real thing, right? This isn't just a, for Cosmo, it isn't just a pretext for trying to get rich or trying to increase his influence.

He really does believe. And I think that that's a, that is another one in which the movie is Prussian, sort of like recognizing that there are people who are genuinely. ideologically motivated even if they have something material to gain they do care about the the world they're trying to build um there is a world they're trying to build rather so um yeah jeff this was a great note thank you for the email and a reminder to listeners that you can reach us for feedback um and we always really appreciate it episodes come out every other friday so we will see you in two weeks with a little movie called sniper here is a very short

plot synopsis. A veteran U.S. Marine sniper is partnered with a rookie sniper as a spotter to take out a politician and a rebel leader in the jungles of Panama. So I guess we'll have to both read up on the Panama intervention. Oh, that yes. To talk about this one. It's available for rent on Amazon and iTunes and for streaming on To Be. So there you go. If you would like to watch it beforehand, you should. So you can follow the conversation when we have it. All right. For John Gantz, I am Jamel Bowie, and this is unclear and present danger. We'll see you next time.

You're going to be able to be.