20 Years Ago Seagal Finished Up The 1990’s

Fire Down Below (reviewed here) was released 20 years ago today.  It was Steven Seagal’s second last movie with Warner Bros… (the last being Exit Wounds).  The movie was a box office bomb, grossing $16 million from a $60 million budget.

It also was lined up for a streak of ‘Worst’ awards, including ‘Worst on-screen couple’ (Seagal and his guitar, believe it or not, but luckily lost out to Van Damme/Rodman), but The Postman collected them all first.

This was Seagal’s penultimate ‘big movie’ and his final big one of the 1990’s.  Despite getting torn up by critics and the box office, even though it’s not an amazing movie, I think it’s damn underrated. It’s good one solid watch every half a dozen years or so.

It wasn’t just Seagal’s career which began faltering here though.  These types of movies and stars were no longer en vogue at this time.  Even Schwarzenegger’s career hit the skids in the late 1990’s.  It was open season on ‘macho’ action men.

Later, people like Tom Cruise were still getting big budget movies like The Last Samurai.  Here is what Sensei Seagal had to say about that type of stuff:

Let me tell you something that might be a bit dangerous. I was raised in Japan. I was schooled in martial arts. I was given the title of master. They take a movie ?The Last Samurai.? They have a 5-foot-2-inch little guy, whether he was straight or gay, I don’t know. I don’t care. He had never been to Japan. He doesn’t speak Japanese. He has never held a sword. They make him the Last Samurai. We got 450,000 phone calls [laughs]from everybody in the world saying, ‘That role was perfect for you. How did that happen?? Most of the people I know didn’t like the film and didn’t go see it. It’s just a classic example of Hollywood and the politics. 

Right on!