Landman Star Billy Bob Thornton Took On Steven Seagal In An Early Action Movie Role – SlashFilm

Long before he traversed the Texas plains as Tommy Norris in “Landman,” Billy Bob Thornton played an even more ruthless role for an oil company. 1994’s “On Deadly Ground” featured the actor in a small part as a mercenary hired by an oil firm to put down a firefighter turned oil worker played by Steven Seagal. It wasn’t good, but luckily for Thornton he’s not in it for very long — though that didn’t stop him from sustaining a serious injury while filming.

In “Landman,” Thornton is as sharp as ever. The now 70-year-old doles out wry West Texas witticisms with ease in a show that seemed destined to have middle America enraptured. It helps, of course, that with his good old boy attitude and staunch loyalty to M-Tex Oil, Tommy seems to embody so many of the values held by conservative audiences. But if Thornton’s Landman isn’t quite pro-oil enough for you, there is another of his performances that should do the trick.

Back in 1994, Thornton was coming off one of the best Westerns ever in “Tombstone” (which also featured his “Landman” co-star Sam Elliott), but he was still a newcomer. It would be another two years before he won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for “Sling Blade,” which solidified him as a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. In the meantime, he continued to work, appearing in one of the best Westerns of the ’90s with Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man” and in the Robert Duvall-led oil drama “The Stars Fell on Henrietta.” But that wasn’t the only oil-related project to feature Thornton in the mid-’90s. In ’94, the young actor portrayed a mercenary for an oil company charged with taking down Seagal — an impossible task in any film, but especially one directed by the man himself.

Steven Seagal’s “Under Siege” is one of the best Navy SEAL movies and a rare instance of the actor garnering some decent reviews. On the other end of the spectrum are his many direct-to-video actioners that aren’t even so bad they’re good. “On Deadly Ground” sits somewhere in the middle. This is Seagal’s only directorial effort which means his ego is not contained within a character but infused throughout the film itself, making for a bizarre experience. On the other hand, it has a great supporting cast, and Billy Bob Thornton is just a small part of it.

Seagal plays Forrest Taft, a firefighter who now works for oil company Aegis in Alaska. The firm is run by the unscrupulous tycoon Michael Jennings (Michael Caine) who needs his latest refinery to go online before he loses the oil production rights to the local tribal council. In order to meet the deadline, Jennings orders his men to cut corners which ultimately results in a rig blowout. Taft and the foreman, Hugh Palmer (Richard Hamilton) then investigate and uncover Jennings’ transgressions, which immediately makes them targets.

Jennings instructs his Chief Security Officer, MacGruder (John C. McGinley) to take out Taft and Palmer. To do so, MacGruder brings in a team of mercenaries led by Stone, played by the great R. Lee Ermey. Thornton plays a member of the hit squad named Homer Carlton who doesn’t last too long before Seagal blows him sky high. Carlton is dispatched in the final face-off that takes place within Aegis 1, the giant oil refinery that Taft similarly levels before being inexplicably invited to the Alaska State Legislature to deliver a sanctimonious speech on ecology.

There’s a lot more that happens in “On Deadly Ground,” including Steven Seagal being led back to righteousness by an indigenous person named Masu (Joan Chen). But it’s not really important given that this film is just an excuse for its star to kill people, blow stuff up, and apparently lecture on the environment. Even Billy Bob Thornton knew as much, so what was he doing in the movie, especially after “Tombstone,” one of the greatest Westerns of all time?

Well, in an interview with The Guardian, Thornton explained that his agent at the time was intent upon turning him into an action star and secured him a role in “On Deadly Ground” as part of that ill-fated enterprise. “I played some dumbass who was there to be killed by Seagal,” said Thornton, who went on to reveal that he sustained a significant injury while shooting the movie after being thrown from a horse. “I woke up with dirt all over my face and in my mouth,” he recalled. “I couldn’t breathe or feel the right side of my body. I had broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a severely bruised pelvis and a concussion.” According to the actor, he was given a hotel room in which to recover and some pain killers  “It was called ‘On Deadly Ground.'” he continued. “I was like, ‘No s***.'”

Suffice it to say that this movie was not well-received by critics. The film has a 14% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviewers lambasting Seagal’s first and last directorial effort. Thankfully, Thornton would soon make the Oscar-winning movie that changed his life with “Sling Blade” allowing him to put his days of playing a faceless Seagal victim far behind him.