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Fire Down Below

1997, Movie, R, 103 mins

Fire Down Below: Review

The newest salvo in martial artist turned actor turned eco-warrior Steven Seagal's cinematic campaign to save the world, this homespun morality tale pits him against corporate robber barons dumping poisonous chemicals in the Appalachian mountains. Seagal is EPA agent Jack Taggert, who goes undercover as a volunteer do-gooder. While fixing sagging porches and leaky roofs, Taggert none too subtly questions the locals about local boy made good Orin Hanner (Kris Kristofferson), a mining tycoon with a sideline in toxic waste. It would be nice to be able to commend Seagal for pressing popular entertainment into the service of raising ecological awareness, but both this picture and his earlier ON DEADLY GROUND, about an oil company whose drilling policies are destroying the Alaskan environment, are less about saving the Earth than exalting Seagal. Of course a Steven Seagal movie is always a showcase for Steven Seagal, but an unreasonable level of suspension of disbelief is required to accept him as an undercover federal agent who, looking to be accepted by the residents of a dirt-poor, backwoods mountain town, strides in wearing a series of expensively vulgar designer jackets and a Beverly Hills ponytail. And forget the notorious lecture about fossil fuels that ends ON DEADLY GROUND: Here Seagal quite literally maneuvers himself in the pulpit, preaching a New Age-y gospel that has little time for turning the other cheek, unless it's to get a better shot at the other guy. What were they thinking? The supporting cast is stocked with far better actors than Seagal -- Kristofferson, Harry Dean Stanton and Stephen Lang among them -- and country music personalities ranging from Mark Collie, Levon Helm, Randy Travis and Travis Tritt to Loretta Lynn's twin daughters Patsy and Peggy, to whom Seagal's character makes some vaguely suggestive remarks. --Maitland McDonagh