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Under Siege

Under Siege is a 1992 action film in the Die Hard mold.

A band of terrorists, aided by a former CIA agent, board a American battleship (the USS Missouri) carrying nuclear weapons, in the guise of a group of musicians hired for a surprise party, and seize control of the ship. They plan to remove the weapons and sell them on the black market. They kill several of the officers, including the Captain, and imprison the whole ship's company below decks. The Executive Officer, secretly in league with them, assumes command.

But the only thing in their way is a ship's cook Casey Ryback (Steven Seagal), who in fact just happens to really be a Chief Petty Officer and former Navy SEAL with special-weapons, aikido and hand-to-hand combat training.

Although under arrest for insubordination, Ryback contrives to escape, and with the assistance of a young dancer (who came aboard with the terrorists but fell asleep), he assembles a special SEAL magnophone and contacts Naval Headquarters in Washington. He releases some of the imprisoned sailors and proceeds to take back control of the ship, killing most of the terrorists in the process.

Under Siege was rated 'R' ('Restricted') by the US MPAA. It stars Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, Patrick O'Neal and Erika Eleniak and was directed by Andrew Davis. It was followed by a sequel, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

Though it was set aboard USS Missouri, none of the film was actually filmed there. Instead it was mostly filmed aboard USS Alabama, at the time already a museum ship in Mobile, Alabama.

Though Seagal plays a Navy chief petty officer, he is wearing the uniform of a flag officer in the movie's poster. (The gold shoulder boards are barely visible.) Curiously, in a scene at the end of the movie he is wearing the correct uniform for his character: an identical tunic with CPO insignia pinned onto the choker collar instead of the shoulder boards.

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