On Deadly Ground
Unclear and Present Danger
Jamelle Bouie
4.7 • 660 Ratings
🗓️ 10 December 2022
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week’s episode, Jamelle and John scrape the bottom of the cinematic barrel with the 1994 environmentalist action flick, “On Deadly Ground,” directed by and starring Steven Seagall. It’s not a good movie, but they had a good conversation covering Seagall’s political trajectory, right-wing misogyny, and the psychological origins of authoritarian politics.
Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.
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Links from the episode!
New York Times front-page for February 18, 1994
A Variety review of “On Deadly Ground”
Siskel and Ebert review “On Deadly Ground”
Next week, Jamelle and John will be joined by The New Yorker’s Clare Malone to discuss “Blown Away” with Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In this land of frozen beauty, where a proud people make their home, |
| 0:09.9 | Ages Oil is making a killing. |
| 0:13.8 | The people here want to talk about the poisons in their environment. |
| 0:18.1 | If Ages 1 is not online and operational in 13 days, then the oil rights will revert back |
| 0:24.5 | to the Meskimos, and that is not going to happen. |
| 0:27.0 | We're back then. |
| 0:29.1 | But there is hope. |
| 0:31.5 | And now he's here. |
| 0:36.2 | Stephen Seagal is on deadly ground. |
| 0:38.9 | You're an oil man. |
| 0:40.0 | But I put out the fires. |
| 0:41.5 | I stop spills. |
| 0:43.6 | We are being lied to by some of the most sophisticated people on earth. |
| 0:48.6 | I know we've had our disagreements. |
| 0:50.9 | How much money is enough? |
| 0:53.1 | I don't need that kind of problem right now. Get rid of the |
| 0:56.5 | problem. You mean mercenaries? Now this land has a friend. In you, I've seen a great spirit. |
| 1:05.4 | These people have a warrior. Did you beat up on this little native man? And this corporation... |
| 1:12.4 | Find me a buddy or find me the man. |
| 1:14.1 | Has a big problem. |
| 1:17.3 | I mean, who they're... |
| 1:18.0 | I was going to reach out and touch somebody here. |
... |
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