Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
Film poster
Directed by	Geoff Murphy
Written by	Richard Hatem Matt Reeves characters J.F. Lawton
Produced by	Arnon Milchan Gary W. Goldstein Steve Perry Steven Seagal
Starring	Steven Seagal Eric Bogosian Katherine Heigl Morris Chestnut Everett McGill Brenda Bakke
Cinematography	Robbie Greenberg
Edited by	Michael Tronick
Music by	Basil Poledouris
Production company	Regency Enterprises
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	July 14, 1995 (1995-07-14)
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	$104,324,083

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is a 1995 American 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 Seagal along with Arnon Milchan and Steve Perry. The film's cast was made up of cameos and supporting roles by Eric Bogosian, Everett McGill, Morris Chestnut, Peter Greene, Kurtwood Smith and Katherine Heigl. Nick Mancuso, Andy Romano, and Dale Dye were the only other cast members besides Seagal to reprise their roles from the first film.

Plot

Casey Ryback (Seagal) has retired from the United States Navy and is a chef at the Mile High Cafe in Denver, Colorado. Casey is taking his estranged niece, Sarah Ryback (Heigl) to Los Angeles to visit the grave of Sarah's father, his brother James Ryback. Sarah and Casey board the Grand Continental, a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles.

Before the train reaches the Rocky Mountains, it is flagged down by two terrorists disguised as railroad workers. The engineer and the brakeman step out and are murdered. A group of terrorists led by a crime boss-turned former U.S. government employee and computer genius Travis Dane (Bogosian) and mercenary leader Penn (McGill) hijack the train.

The terrorists cut train phone lines and take passengers and staff hostage, herding them into the last two train cars. Casey kills one terrorist, then slips away. He makes his way through the train, inside, then above. Sarah reassures a waitress that her father and uncle both were awarded medals, heroes. Two medals are so secret Casey cannot tell anyone, so he will not let anything happen to them.

Dane worked on Grazer One, a top secret military satellite particle weapon for underground targets. The military fired Dane. Angry, he faked his suicide. He not only invented Grazer, he designed blocks, and added the feature to hide from tracking, as long as Grazer is in motion. He will not stop the train for six hours.

Two former Department of Defense colleagues aboard hide their romantic relationship that violates Department of Defense regulations. Dane threatens them with burning needles in their eyes unless they reveal codes to take over Grazer. Fatima, the sole female mercenary, holds the needle. Despite their disclosures, after the codes are confirmed to work, they are thrown from the train over a deep river valley.

Middle Eastern terrorists have offered Dane $1 billion to destroy the Eastern seaboard by using Grazer to target a nuclear reactor located under the Pentagon. Dane demonstrates Grazer to investors by destroying a Chinese waste-processing plant. After one investor offers an additional $100 million, despite the weapon's primary intention for subterranean targets, Dane destroys an airliner carrying the investor's ex-wife.

The U.S. government cannot locate Dane or Grazer. Dane creates fifty "ghost satellites" to hide the location. When officials destroy what they think is Grazer, Dane explains the NSA best intelligence satellite was destroyed. As long as the train keeps moving, his location cannot be determined.

Casey takes matters into his own hands. Train porter Bobby Zachs (Chestnut) is reluctant, but the only help available. Casey also faxes a message to the owner of the Mile High Cafe, who finally reads it and relays the word to Admiral Bates (Romano). Bates quickly understands that Dane and the terrorists are on the train, and reluctantly approves a mission by two F-117 Stealth bombers to destroy the train.

Zachs discovers that they are on the wrong tracks and are on a collision course with a Southern Pacific bulk freight train carrying gasoline tank cars. Casey kills the mercenaries one by one, but Dane uses his computer skills to find the Stealth missiles and re-target Grazer to knock them out before they complete their mission.

Penn takes Sarah as bait for Casey. Casey confronts Penn, who is aware of Casey's military past. Casey disarms Penn, and fatally breaks his neck. Casey finds Dane about to depart in a chopper hovering over the train. Dane is unaware that Zachs has killed Fatima and is forcing the pilot to wait for Sarah and Casey at gunpoint.

When Dane informs Casey that there is no way to stop the satellite from destroying Washington, Casey shoots him. The bullet destroys his computer and injures Dane, who falls out of a window of the train. Control of the satellite is restored at the Pentagon and it is destroyed by remote control one second before it would have fired on the Pentagon, just before the two trains collide.

The crash happens on a trestle, resulting in an explosion that destroys the bridge and kills Scotty (Banks), the mercenary driving the train. Casey races through the exploding train, and grabs a rope ladder hanging from the chopper. Dane, who survived the gunshot and the crash, also catches onto the ladder. He attempts to climb onto the helicopter, screams that he and Casey should join forces. Casey silently shuts the door, severs Dane's fingers, so Dane falls to his death into the explosion.

Casey informs the Pentagon that the passengers are safe, because he previously detached the last two cars from the rest of the train. In the final scene, Sarah and Casey pay their final respects at her father's gravestone.

Cast

• Steven Seagal as Lt. Casey Ryback, a former SEAL who now heads and manages a restaurant in Denver
• Eric Bogosian as Travis Dane, a crime boss-turned former U.S. military employee and crazed computer genius who designed the weapons satellite who takeovers the satellite for his own bidding, the main antagonist
• Everett McGill as Penn, the mercenary leader who leads a team of terrorists to hijack the Grand Continental train to set up the satellite equipment, the secondary antagonist
• Katherine Heigl as Sarah Ryback, Ryback's niece who accompanies him on the train to go to her father's funeral
• Morris Chestnut as Bobby Zachs, an eager porter of the train who reluctantly helps Ryback with the hijacked train
• Nick Mancuso as Tom Breaker, the shady CIA director who assists ATAC on Grazer One
• Brenda Bakke as Captain Linda Gilder, a member of ATAC and one of Dane's former colleagues
• Peter Greene as Mercenary #1, Penn's main mercenary who was instructed by Ryback at Fort Bragg
• Patrick Kilpatrick as Mercenary #2, One of Penn's mercenaries
• Scott Sowers as Mercenary #3, One of Penn's mercenaries
• Afifi Alaouie as Female Mercenary (Fatima), Penn's sole female mercenary
• Andy Romano as Admiral Bates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Dale Dye as Captain Garza, Admirial Bates' right-hand man
• Kurtwood Smith as Major General Stanley Cooper, An Air Force general who commands ATAC and Dane's former boss
• David Gianopoulos as Captain David Trilling, a member of ATAC and one of Dane's former colleagues
• Sandra Taylor as Kelly, a barmaid on board the train
• Jonathan Banks as Scotty (Mercenary), the mercenary who drives the locomotive of the Grand Continental train
• Royce D. Applegate as Ryback's cook who runs the restaurant when Ryback is absent
• Dale Payne as Train Conductor

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a three-star rating in his review, while Peter Rainer of the The Los Angeles Times wrote that "the action upstaged the actors." Despite some positive reviews, Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 34% based on reviews from 29 critics.

Box office

Under Siege 2 opened at #2 at the box office under Apollo 13 in 2,150 theaters and made $12,624,402 with a hefty $5,871 average for the weekend.

Sequel

In July 2013, Seagal spoke of his plans to make a sequel to Russian media. He revealed that the movie would be 'based on a true story' and set inside a building, around an incident that was 'concealed from the public'.

External links

• Under Siege 2: Dark Territory at IMDb
• Under Siege 2: Dark Territory at AllMovie
• Under Siege 2: Dark Territory at Rotten Tomatoes