Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is a 1995 American action thriller film directed by Geoff Murphy, starring Steven Seagal as the ex-Navy SEAL, Casey Ryback. Set on board a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles, it is the sequel to the 1992 film Under Siege also starring Seagal. The title refers to the railroading term that the subject train was travelling through dark territory, a section of railroad track that has no train signals and in which communications between train dispatchers and the railroad engineers were impossible. The film was produced by Seagal along with Arnon Milchan and Steve Perry. The film’s cast also included Eric Bogosian, Everett McGill, Morris Chestnut, Peter Greene, Kurtwood Smith and Katherine Heigl. In addition to Seagal, Nick Mancuso, Andy Romano, and Dale Dye also reprised their roles from the first film.
Plot.
Following his retirement from the United States Navy, Casey Ryback settles in Denver, Colorado, where he starts and runs a restaurant business. Sometime later, his estranged brother, James Ryback, perishes in a plane crash. Upon receiving news of the incident, Casey meets James’s daughter, Sarah, whom he will accompany to Los Angeles to attend his funeral. The two board the Grand Continental, a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles. On board, they befriend a porter named Bobby Zachs and the train’s chefs. As the train reaches the Rocky Mountains, a group of terrorists flag it down and murder the engineer and brakeman. The group, led by former U.S. government employee and computer genius Travis Dane and his second-in-command Marcus Penn, cuts the train phone lines and takes passengers and staff hostage, herding them into the last two cars. Casey kills one terrorist, then slips away. Dane worked on Grazer One, a top secret military satellite particle weapon for underground targets. The military fired Dane, who later faked his suicide.Dane threatens two former Department of Defense colleagues with burning needles in their eyes unless they reveal codes to take over Grazer. Despite their disclosures, after the codes are confirmed to work, they are thrown from the train over a deep valley.
Middle Eastern terrorists have offered Dane $1 billion to destroy the Eastern seaboard by using Grazer to target a nuclear reactor located under the Pentagon. Dane demonstrates Grazer to investors by destroying a Chinese biological weapons facility that was passing itself off as a fertilizer production plant. After one investor offers an additional $100 million, despite the weapon’s primary intention for subterranean targets, Dane destroys an airliner carrying the investor’s ex-wife.
The U.S. government has difficulty locating Dane or Grazer. When officials destroy what they think is Grazer, Dane explains the NSA’s best intelligence satellite was destroyed. As long as the train keeps moving, his location cannot be determined.