Fire Down Below

Steven Seagal is environmentalist/F.B.I. Agent Jack Taggart in this eerily familar action flick. Taggart is distraught when his long time F.B.I. partner is murdered while investigating a toxic waste case in the mountains. For his friend's memory, Taggart decides to visit the little mountain town, and find out what he can about the toxic waste cover-up. Upon his arrival he is greeted coldly by the unfriendly townsfolk. After some digging around, Taggart discovers that some of the locals are being paid off to keep the toxic dumping a secret. However, he creates a bond with an old man and his daughter, who want the toxic dumping to stop for fear of the affects on the environment. With their help Taggart goes after the head of the toxic dumping (Kris Kristofferson) with only vengeance on his mind.

Fire Down Below is just another of a slew of Seagal films that have no real point, except to pit our hero against an evil corporation doing terrible things to the environment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the right message to send to impressionable youngsters, but I think the basic message gets lost with all the punching and kicking. Lets face it, Fire Down Below is nothing but a cheap and poorly written excuse to allow Seagal to put on the cranky face and hit some bad guys. The dry-witted, low talking, hard hitting - but environmentally friendly - Seagal really loves nothing more than hurting big men in bad hats, and if that’s all you look for in a movie... then I suggest you seek counselling. However once your aggression issues have been resolved, then I’m sure you’ll find some good B-grade thrills to be had with this film.

Kris Kristofferson is great as Orin Hanner Snr, the evil snarling leader of the toxic dumping. His performance makes the film just a touch more appealing as you know that just before the end credits roll he’s going to be either dead or in a hell of a lot of pain. Fire Down Below is unfortunately nothing new for Seagal and is pretty much like a thousand other B-grade or Chuck Norris films. This is certainly not his greatest film to date, and could be well worth avoiding if you're not one of his most hardcore fans.

Transfers for the Seagal movies are finally starting to pick up. Presented with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, Fire Down Below is also widescreen enhanced.

The general detail on this film is surprisingly good when compared to his previous releases, but is still not up to scratch with other films of its age (1997). Grain is pretty common, film artefacts are regular but not extreme, and aliasing pops up on only a few minor occasions.

For the good points though the colours are well rendered, shadow detail is looking nice, and there are no MPEG artefacts. Overall this is an improvement on the previous Seagal films, but is still pretty ordinary considering its lack of age.

As with the previous Seagal films, this disc receives three soundtracks, English Dolby Digital 5.1, Italian Dolby Digital 5.1, and French Dolby Digital 5.1.

The English soundtrack is quite a reasonable effort. The dialogue is clear, the surrounds get a good work out, and the subwoofer gets several chances to thump heartily. There are also no audio synch problems. Overall the soundtrack lacks any real brilliance, but does the job with ease and without any distracting problems.

No extras, just subtitles in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Portuguese, English - Hearing Impaired, Italian - Hearing Impaired, Romanian, and Bulgarian.

Fire Down Below was never one of my favourite Seagal flicks, but this doesn't mean it's terrible. The similarities between this film and Seagal's previous On Deadly Ground are probably enough to dampen my enthusiasm as he appears to be just going through the motions over and over again without really stretching the storyline or his performance. If you want to see bad guys get hurt in a thousand different ways then Seagal is the man for you, and that’s basically all this film can offer you.