We've had an office block (Die Hard), an airport (Die Harder), an airliner (Passenger 57), a battleship (Under Siege) and a bus (Speed). And now the men in suits, fresh from their inevitable annual huddle to decide what terrorists could take over this time, have settled upon - wait for it - a train.
Thus, on a flimsy premise, ex-Navy SEAL Casey Ryback (Seagal) and his teenage niece (Heigl) catch the Denver to LA train. Topography being what it is, this means the ill-fated loco passes through the Rocky Mountains, putting it in an area of radio blackout, the so-called "Dark Territory" - always to be mentioned in a menacing tone.
This, in itself, is deemed a good enough reason for international terrorists to hijack the chuffer and set up an onboard computer tracking station to redirect a CIA weapons satellite and lay waste civilisation as we know it - unless they are given a billion dollars in used notes and a cab to the airport. Or something.
They can't win, of course, for, as per formula, our hero was momentarily absent when the hostages were rounded up (he'd nipped back to the kitchen to whip up a crafty omelette) and will be back soon. As they used to say at the beginning of The Water Margin, "Thus might one man become an army", and so Casey begins his struggle to toot the whistle of the Under Siege Express.
Sound silly? It is. Very. But it's also highly enjoyable, incredibly slick and a damn sight more entertaining than numerous other bombastic actioners. Bogosian makes for a splendidly deranged villain - a non-English one at that, whatever next? - chucking out some choice one-liners. But towering above it all in his black suit is the lumpen Seagal, emoting not a jot as he slopes in, around and under the carriages, creeping up on unsuspecting baddies. Stallone would have been down to his undies. Seagal? Hell, he doesn't even take his jacket off.
