Fire Down Below

Amazon.com

Here's a movie that only a Steven Seagal fan could love. It's not nearly as good as Under Siege (the movie destined to remain Seagal's high-water mark), but not any worse than Above the Law. This time ol' Steve is an agent of the Environmental Protection Agency who's busting heads in Kentucky. He's on good terms with the local yokels (including Marg Helgenberger and Harry Dean Stanton), but locks horns with a slimy mogul (Kris Kristofferson) who's using abandoned mines to dump toxic waste. Along with an ecological message, Seagal serves up several broken limbs, cracked skulls, and bloody noses, and he even finds time to do some guitar picking with country boys such as Travis Tritt and Randy Travis. Once you've heard Seagal crooning a country tune, you'll be eager to see him go back to whuppin' the bad guys. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

Hillbillies fight back against big corporations!.......2007-08-12

Wow, the left will have a hard time with this one. The rednecks in the mountains are led by Steven Seagal to fight back against a big moneybags dude that is dumping toxic chemicals in the mountains. Yeah peoples a good movie with a great chase scene involving a Mack truck! Well Seagal cannot act but he can kick some booty when necessary. Marg Helgenberger or however you spell her name, well she is hot, oh so hot and she is great in this! Then there are like 20 cameo appearances from a bunch of Country singers, I recognized Randy Travis and Kris Kristofferson but I could not place the fella playing the guitar on stage. Maybe it is Marty Stuart I don't recall and it does not really matter. Lots of action but really this story is just so much better than most of the junk action stuff Seagal did in the years following this movie. Whatever, he is over the hill now but hey there peoples, for nine dollars it is not a bad DVD to have. Yeeeeee haaaaaawww!

The Last Hurrah of Steven Seagal.......2007-03-25

This movie was Steven's last really good flick. It really isn't his best , but after "On Deadly Ground" it sure is better , and much better than his later movies. How many EPA workers carry guns , break bones , know kung-fu , and play guitar, I don't know but in this movie a least one does. It's the same thing as in all his other movies but at least he is still fit here.

Entertaining Seagal flick.......2007-02-25

Seagal plays EPA agent Jack Taggert, who heads to a quiet Kentucky mining town to investigate the death of his friend and the possible dumping of toxic waste by a corrupt corporation. (yes, like "On Deadly Ground" it raises environmental issues, but it's thankfully not as self-serving) Posing as a carpenter for the local priest, he quickly finds much of the town under the influence of the evil corporate head. (played by Kris Kristofferson) Soon he's busting heads to get a few answers.

"Fire Down Below" has everything you'd want in a Seagal film. There are fight scenes involving crowds of people, you've got the car chase, and you've got Seagal giving half-hearted retorts to the villains. The film does, unfortunately have its faults. It gets very repititive by the hour mark - pretty much most of it is the villain sending thugs after Seagal, Seagal beating them up...rinse and repeat. Granted there are cool fight scenes, like the one at the grocery store or the car chase with the 18-wheeler, but they would be even better with a more engaging story. And yes, I know, it's a Steven Seagal film, but I was looking for a story that at least offered some different plot points from time to time. I might also add that Seagal's character seems rather incompetant when it comes to keeping friends - any time someone says, "I'll tell you what you need to know" they get beat up or killed without Seagal seeming to care or even try to protect them beforehand. It's only when the love interest is threatened that he actually steps in and stops the bad guys.

Still, it's not nearly as bad as his later films (when he became a kung-fu version of Meatloaf) and Seagal still seems to be in his prime. When the fight scenes happen they are entertaining, and you do get a sense of who the good guys and bad guys are. (even if the bad guys are stereotypically shallow)

"Fire Down Below" is not Seagal's best, and it won't be featured in any historical film archives, but if you're looking for classic Seagal then it will still amuse you.

One Of The Best.......2007-01-10

If you like Steven Segal, you will love this movie. He is fabulous in it, and slams the really evil bad guys in their faces, the way they deserve to be slammed. He is dashing, handsome, and very sensitive to the nice people in the town he is visiting. He is caring and tries to help them. He also is a gentleman, besides meting out his special type of punishment, the way we all just LOVE to see. I love this movie.

Seagal is simply an authority figure with a heart of purest gold..........2006-12-31

Steven Seagal is one of those actors with a totally winning personality... He is simply an authority figure, a killing machine with a heart of purest gold... I can't help it; I like the guy.

In 'Fire Down Below,' he is an outsider posing as a church sponsored carpenter while he works for the Environmental Protection Agency to stop a greedy coal baron from dumping extremely large quantities of toxic wastes in abandoned coal mines... Those dangerous chemicals could destroy the drinking water for thousands of miles and kill a bunch of people around the hills... Seagal gallantly promised not to leave the small town until the poison from the air, the streams and the earth is taken out...

Many thugs (with snakes, sticks, guns, and big trucks) are hired by the uncaring mining magnate to get rid of our action hero but Seagal remains virtually untouched...

'Fire Down Below' highlights new environmental message but fails to come up with the expectations... First, Seagal's amorous interest with the sad country woman seems artificial, used in the film to grant the 'new visitor' easy access to statements he might need... Second, the motion picture lacks the best villain whose prowess could equals Seagal's... Steven's character never really faces much of a challenge... In fact, the fight scenes are too short and extremely fast and easy...

If you are a fan of country music and you want to see Seagal playing guitar and singing, and you like to explore sweeping vistas with glorious sunsets, don't miss this movie!

Average customer rating:

Bandido?
Entertaining studio fare
A romantic trio in a drama of intrigue among small-time smugglers...
Overlooked Gem with great star power!!!!
Armies have marched over me

Fire Down Below
Starring: Rita Hayworth , Robert Mitchum , Jack Lemmon , Herbert Lom , and Bonar Colleano
Director: Robert Parrish
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000127Z50
Release Date: 2004-02-10

Customer Reviews:

Bandido?.......2007-09-04

I was looking for a Mitchum movie called Bandido, which I recall seeing in my youth in the 50's. For some reason, Fire Down Below came up on the amazon search of bandido. It didn't look like the right one, but for 5$, I gave it a shot. What a stinker! The only interesting things were: nice color, alot of big stars (future and past). I now recall someone like Gilbert Roland was in Bandido, with alot of shoot-em-up, appropriate for my 10 years of age sensibility.

Entertaining studio fare.......2007-06-17

Nothing to do with Steven Seagal, 1957's Fire Down Below can be seen either as a typical Hollywood romantic triangle (although it's actually a British film) or, for the more trivia minded, as a footnote to the Bond films, with co-producer Albert R. Broccoli assembling various Bond team members five years before the event - the first M (Bernard Lee) and Blofeld (Eric Pholmann) in front of the cameras, production designer Syd Cain and special effects man Cliff Richardson behind them. The story is pretty simple: Robert Mitchum and Jack Lemmon eke out a precarious and less than legal living in Trinidad by ferrying tourists or the odd consignment of contraband in their rundown boat until one day their cargo - in this case displaced person Rita Hayworth, always one port ahead of a warrant - comes between them. Things reach a head when Lemmon finds himself trapped in the cargo hulk of a burning ship while Bernard Lee, Herbert Lom and Bonar Colleano try to free him before they're forced to abandon the ship in deep waters to avoid the entire harbor being destroyed.

While the first half of the film ambles along pleasantly enough, it's this section that really grips (and spectacularly eats up most of the budget), even though Mitch and Rita disappear for nearly 40 minutes while all this is going on. In fact, Hayworth all but disappears from the second half of the film entirely, having little to do once Lemmon decides to make an ill-fated smuggling run and making surprisingly little impact doing it, though it is your only chance to see her calypso dance with Tutte Lemkow! (Incidentally, it was while in Trinidad for this film that Mitchum was inspired to record one of the greatest albums of all time, Calypso is Like So: if you don't have it in your collection, you need to! Not to be outdone, Jack Lemmon is credited as one of the film's composers for his harmonica themes...)

There are few surprises (though Anthony Newley underplaying his part to pleasing effect is certainly one of them), but despite some clumsy editing in the early scenes it's enjoyable formulaic studio fair with a particularly nice use of old-fashioned CinemaScope, and Columbia's widescreen DVD has one of the best transfers I've seen from a 50s film. No extras other than trailers for Lady From Shanghai, Gilda and They Came to Cordura.

A romantic trio in a drama of intrigue among small-time smugglers..........2006-12-31

Made on location in Trinidad, "Fire Down Below" was Rita Hayworth's return to the screen after a four-year absence...

During her screen absence Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "The Barefoot Contessa," which starred Ava Gardner as a Spanish dancing-girl who becomes first an international film star and then a Contessa, was released with great success... Although Mankiewicz had always denied there were fictional similarities between his film and Hayworth's own private life, most filmgoers and film gossips felt otherwise...

In fact they regarded "The Barefoot Contessa" as an obvious imitation or approximation of Rita's life, just as they had found similarities between her husband Orson Welles' film "Citizen Kane" and the life of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst...

Therefore "Fire Down Below" had a sort of "built-in" curiosity about it and critics who for years had ignored Rita's acting abilities or were even willing to admit their possibilities, were now beginning to regard her as an actress instead of just a sex symbol...

Considerably older-looking, and playing a woman used and abused by many men, Rita had a few lines that contained cruel accuracies about her own life...

Overlooked Gem with great star power!!!!.......2004-08-16

This DVD is an underrated movie that never seems to have gotten much attention.And it should have,because its a great movie.With a nice transfer to DVD,nice color and sharp picture.There are some fine performances from Robert Mitchum and Rita Hayworth.And as usual Jack Lemmon is strong,in a slightly more serious role for him at this time in his career.The DVD is a little pricey,and doesnt include any real features or extras.Nonetheless looks GREAT and is a fine little movie that i recommend to anyone who likes these 3 great actors/actresses.An overlooked gem of a movie that should be checked out.Cheers!

Armies have marched over me.......2004-05-08

More football games have been lost and more movies ruined by bad time management.... FIRE DOWN BELOW has everything it needs to be a five-star classic - a charismatic cast headed by Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum and Jack Lemmon, a colorful and picturesque location in Tobago and Trinidad, and a compelling story of friendship, love and jealousy. Unfortunately, it practically grinds to a halt in the second half.
Felix (Robert Mitchum) and Tony (Jack Lemmon) own a tramp boat and make a living of sorts hiring it out. Felix is a crusty veteran and Tony is a fresh bud sowing some young wild oats. Life is good (if a little ragged) when Irena (Rita Hayworth) walks into their life and they agree to smuggle her to the small island of Santa Nada. Irena has a few secrets to keep and to escape from, and for $1000 Felix and Tony aren't asking many questions. They agree to take her there.
Will Tony fall for the dark-eyed Irena? Will Felix? Which one will she choose? Heck, we could plot this one ourselves and get it right. You can sniff this one out pretty fast, and there aren't a lot of surprises, but with a cast of this caliber it doesn't really matter.
The boys eventually have a falling out over Irena, and within a couple of plot-beats Tony finds himself a hired hand on a cargo ship. Add a little fog and another boat and there's a collision and Tony is pinned in the bulkhead.
And there we sit for pretty much the second half of the movie. Worried about the resolution of the Irena/Felix/Tony conflict, we're pinned under this plot twist way way way too long. Tug boats haul the ship into harbor, the US Navy is asked to winch or cut him out and we're along for each agonizing step. Minus two points for that.
If you're a fan of any of the leads this is worth your while. And it's pretty to look at. The dvd also contains Rita Hayworth trailers.

Fire Down Below/Out for Justice/On Deadly Ground

Average customer rating:

Triple Feature Seagal at a Great Price
BOSS Lady

Fire Down Below/Out for Justice/On Deadly Ground
Starring: Warner Triple Feature
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000HT38HG
Release Date: 2006-11-07

Description

Can-do hero. Can't-miss action. Steven Seagal stars in and directs On Deadly Ground (Disc 1/Side A). He plays Forrest Taft, the roughest of Alaska's oil roughnecks...and bad news to a corporate big shot (Michael Caine), who put profits over environmental safety. Then he fires up Fire Down Below (Disc 1/Side B) as an EPA officer headed for an eco-showdown in Appalachian mining country. Co-stars include Kris Kristofferson and CSI Crime Scene Investigation's Marg Helgenberger. A gangster who leaves corpses as his calling cards runs up against Brooklyn cop Gino Felino (Seagal) in the thriller Out for Justice (Disc 2), co-starring Jerry Orbach (Law & Order).

Customer Reviews:

Triple Feature Seagal at a Great Price.......2007-08-23

I am a fan of Steven Seagal's better movies. He has done a few of late that show his age and don't have the edginess that his earlier ventures like Undersiege generated. The three in this set are all quite entertaining. In "On Deadly Ground", he plays an oil roughneck putting out oil fire and he becomes friendly with the Alaskan Inuit Indians. He transforms and becomes ecologically minded and commences a whooping on the evil Michael Caine and his greasy henchmen. It is one of my favorites with exceptional scenery and music. In "Fire Down Below" he is one bad EPA agent trying to find evidence on the mad Kris Kristopherson and his Kentucky cronies for poisoning the water supply with leaking cyanide barrels in a mine. And finally in "Out for Justice" he is a cop friendly with the local Brooklyn wise guys and he wants vengeance when his partner is killed by a whacked out William Forsythe and his gang. I highly recommend this set for such a good price. Much cheaper than renting when you want some good tough guy action.

BOSS Lady.......2007-07-17

I enjoy a good suspense movie and this triple feature hits the top of the list! Segal is a favorite actor of mine. He's powerful yet polite, super intelligent but not beyond believable. His style never ceased to amaze the audience, keeping young and old on the edge of their seats! This triple feature is worth the viewing and even more - worth the money.

Average customer rating:

Hillbillies fight back against big corporations!
The Last Hurrah of Steven Seagal
Entertaining Seagal flick
One Of The Best
Seagal is simply an authority figure with a heart of purest gold...

Fire Down Below [Region 2]
Starring: Steven Seagal , Marg Helgenberger , Stephen Lang , Brad Hunt , and Kris Kristofferson
Director: Félix Enríquez Alcalá
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Thrillers | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

( F ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00004CZQW

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Hillbillies fight back against big corporations!.......2007-08-12

The Last Hurrah of Steven Seagal.......2007-03-25

Entertaining Seagal flick.......2007-02-25

One Of The Best.......2007-01-10

Seagal is simply an authority figure with a heart of purest gold..........2006-12-31

Average customer rating:

CAVEAT EMPTOR
They have got to be kidding.
It is a bad deal.
Not terribly useful collection
Some Winners and Some Losers

Dozen DVD Deal - Action

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

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Action & Adventure | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Customer Reviews:

CAVEAT EMPTOR.......2005-05-11

BUYER BEWARE! This looks like a lowball of a deal if you consider that most of the movies depicted are the worst Hollywood has ever produced and delivered. I would look at the reviews and perhaps rent each individual movie before you by them all together. Here's a view of some of them:

'The Big Red One': Without question one of the worst WWII/D-Day films ever produced in every respect (technically and historically.) The film stars Lee Marvin who's much too old to play a grunt on the beaches of Normandy. The film is riddled with cliches and bad scenes from beginning to end. It wasn't even filmed in Europe but Israel. Yes, the coasts and beaches in Israel look so much like Normandy it's striking! It's about as bad as setting Auschwitz in Death Valley for a Holocaust film.

'The Gauntlet': Dirty Harry-type Eastwood movie where he's got to protect a witness against corrupt cops. Not a bad movie but not his best either: far below his Dirty Harry films or his westerns.

'Point of No Return': American version of "La Femme Nikita" starring Bridget Fonda. O.K. but the French version was better and more realistic.

'The Sea Wolves': Humor-action WWII movie starring Roger Moore. This one is actually pretty good with a lot of action.

'Soldier': Probably the worst movie that Kurt Russel ever starred in where he has an even smaller script than Schwarzeneger in "Terminator." Pathetic: not even worth watching once.

'Tango and Cash': Comedy-action cop movie with Kurt Russel and Sylvester Stallone. O.K. but after a while you begin to wonder whether you're laughing at the film or the fact that this was even made into a movie.

'Victory': Good movie about a soccer team of prisoners in WWII starrring Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone. This film is probably the best one out of the entire selection.

'When Trumpets Fade': Another one of the absolutely worst war films ever produced regarding the obscure battle of Hurtigen Forest at the close of WWII in Europe. A pathetic film with a horrible screenplay and equally disgraceful acting: avoid like the plague! I got it for free as a bonus to buying 'Band of Brothers' and I threw it away after one viewing as I couldn't stop laughing as to how bad this movie was.

Save your money and buy the few good films in this packet separately. Most of the movies in this package are not worth buying trust me!

They have got to be kidding........2005-03-20

There are maybe two OK movies in this "Deal", the rest are junk. I do not want to own any of them personally. The best part is the deal itself. Every single one of these movies can be had for less than ten bucks. If they chopped the first number of the price, they might be able to call it a deal.

It is a bad deal........2004-11-18

With the market for the DVD's being so competetive you can buy these DVDs individually at a much cheaper price than as an action pack on amazon. Don't be fooled go else where. The movies are good so I'd get them just not all at once like this.

David

Not terribly useful collection.......2003-09-12

While the movies here in and of themselves are not 'bad' movies, unless you really want to buy them all you would probably be better off seeking the specific movies that you want rather than coughing up $115 for them here.

Some Winners and Some Losers.......2003-09-10

This is an interesting set of DVDs.

There are some good films here and some not so great.

"The Big Red One" is a much overlooked war film starring, believe it or not, Mark Hamill of "Star Wars" fame. The story is told very well.

"Fort Apache, The Bronx" stars Paul Newman and is really not so bad a cop film. If you like that genre, this is a good addition to your collection. Again, a well told story, if not a little dated.

"The Gauntlet" is a pretty good Clint Eastwood movie from 1977. Not one of his best, but not one of his worst either.

"Point of No Return" is the American version of "LaFemme Nikita" starring Bridget Fonda. The original is the better movie, but this one works. Its a fun watch.

"Ricochet" stars a pre-Oscar win Denzel Washington and a very over the top John Lithgow. It passes for entertainment, but barely. Lindsay Wagner shows up, if that helps.

"Soldier" is a Kurt Russel movie that he worked out for. Nice pecs, Kurt.

"Tango and Cash" is actually a pretty good film. Importantly, it does NOT take itself too seriously and it fun to watch. It stars Kurt Russel and Sylvester Stallone in their prime action-hero days.

"Victory" is a great film. The best featured here. It is placed in a concentration camp in WWII and its about soccer. You're intrigued, right? Its actually a very good movie, uplifting and well told. Again we have Sylvester Stallone and he's joined by Michael Caine and Pele (soccer superstar).

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Hillbillies fight back against big corporations!.......2007-08-12

The Last Hurrah of Steven Seagal.......2007-03-25

Entertaining Seagal flick.......2007-02-25

One Of The Best.......2007-01-10

Seagal is simply an authority figure with a heart of purest gold..........2006-12-31

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