Movie Spoiler - Under Siege
Navy Seal turned Navy cook Steven Seagal wields his wooden spoon and wooden acting skills in this tour-de-force of senseless violence. Busted for insubordination, Seagal's Casey Ryback character simmers away his remaining days in the military aboard a battleship armed with nuklar weapons. Evidently kindly old captain Adams, portrayed by kindly old Patrick O'Neal, has taken has taken a shine to hapless Ryback. Cap'n Adams uses his prodigious naval influence to bring Ryback aboard as his personal chef. All of this is back-story, but so convoluted is the plot that without this crucial information you may find yourself lost in subtle story nuances worthy of Alfred Hitchcock or at least Roger Corman.
So there's this uber-skilled ship's cook who finds himself charged with rescuing the entire crew when these really bad guys smuggle automatic weapons on board and make with the senseless violence. Integral in the administration of the senseless violence is an almost but not quite completely unbelievable portrayal of a rogue officer by Gary Busey. Supposedly Commander Krill somehow dupes the entire crew into letting down their guard for a surprise party in honor of Captain Adams. We can only surmise that Cap'n Adams shepherded the dumbest vessel in United States Naval history. The entire crew, except for Ryback of course, is taken hostage after a dollop of obligatory senseless violence. Ryback is imprisoned in a meat locker but manages to talk his way out, overcome trained killers with automatic weapons, rescue a fair maiden, and recruit several willing crew members to aid him in his quest.
Inevitably the surviving bad guy launches the ship's deadly missiles. They speed toward Hawaii, intent on making it glow in the dark. Fortunately Ryback is a master electrician. Along with his skills in cooking and explosives, he is intimately familiar with the ships' control room, weapons systems, and communications. Shortly before the missiles reach their destination and long after anyone with half a brain has switched over to Andy Griffith reruns, Ryback establishes a radio link with the missiles and transmits a self-destruct instruction. Either that or he bored them into the ocean with his sneer. I can't remember what actually happened.
Mixed in with the senseless violence is an existential hand-to-hand battle with a rogue CIA agent turned hippie. They dance around the control room while knife-fighting and debating geopolitical issues. Ryback wins, if you consider surviving this plot-line a victory. The hippie's motivation seems to be related to authority issues way back in his experience as an undercover spook. We are treated to 30 seconds of plot exposition explaining that he was emotionally scarred back by his boss in the Bad Old Days. Whatever happened, it made the ex-CIA agent turned hippie unhappy enough to mastermind all the senseless violence. Coincidentally the very man who betrayed him is huddled in the
Situation Room with the other pasty faced authority figures back on dry
land. In another shocking coincidence, another one of the pasty faced guys is on a first name basis with Ryback. We witness a sappy spy reunion whenever the guys on the ship talk to the guys in the Situation Room. Had the movie trundled on much longer, we might have learned that Commander Krill's mother was serving coffee to the pasty faced guys.
Movie Spoilers - Under Siege
Conclusion
The world gets saved. Ryback lives to cook another day and take a train ride into Dark Territory with his daughter. Fortunately that's another stinker for another day.
We learn that the Navy is hapless. Only a super-hero cook can save the day because horribly beweaponed ships are populated by a few unbalanced turncoats and legions of stumbling oafs. Anything and everything can be smuggled onto a Navy ship under the loosest of pretenses.
This movie is typical Seagal. He kills bad guys using common household materials, demonstrates fierce loyalty to people that are nice to him, and fails mightily to exude coolness.