Anyone from the 60s and 70s remember those nutty BILLY JACK B-movies? You know, hippie-Zen loner comes to town, protect the downtrodden by beating the shit out of the evil conservative rednecks.
Well, in this box-office dud, Steven Seagal effectively follows the BILLY JACK template, except instead of fighting Neo-Nazi bikers terrorizing hippies, its corporate rednecks who want to dump toxic waste in Appalachia. Effectively its Seagal being the bloody Tree-hugger savior like the quite bad ON DEADLY GROUND, but at least he's learned to make a passable, but forgettable, action fare. People that go to see action films don't go for the message.
FIRE DOWN BELOW is not a good movie, but its not bad either. Its just a shrug. Still, Kris Kristofferson has fun as the baddie, Marg Helgenberger(despite this movie flopping, she did find success as the female lead in the TV mega-hit C.S.I.) is decent, and hey criminally underrated southern acting legend Harry Dean Stanton is in the background.
