Submerged (2005 film)

For the record label, see Submerged Records.

Submerged
Submerged DVD cover
Directed by	Anthony Hickox
Written by	Anthony Hickox Paul de Souza
Produced by	Avi Lerner George Furla
Starring	Steven Seagal Christine Adams William Hope Vinnie Jones Gary Daniels
Music by	Guy Farley
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Millennium Films
Release date	May 2005
Running time	96 min. (original running time: 180 min.)
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$10,000,000 USD (estimated)

Submerged is an action film, released in 2005. The film stars Steven Seagal, Christine Adams, William Hope (actor), Gary Daniels, Alison King and Vinnie Jones. The film was directed by British director Anthony Hickox.

Plot

Chris Cody (Steven Seagal) is a top-ranked mercenary who took part in an undercover operation to stop a major terrorist strike on U.S. soil—a strike that the UN refused to believe was about to happen. However, Cody had to break a number of laws in order to do the job, and he's in a military prison.

A recurring subplot involves an ancient alien race that comes from the skies in huge aircraft and maintain a trading business with the miserable peasants at an Uruguayan village.

At the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay, Secret Service agents are briefing the ambassador on a terrorist base when they suddenly go haywire and kill her, and then themselves. Later, in Washington DC, intelligence analyst Dr. Chappell (Christine Adams) concludes that some sort of mind control device must have been used. A Delta Force commando team is sent to Uruguay to investigate, but they are quickly ambushed and captured. Taken to the terrorist base, they are brainwashed by Dr. Adrian Lehder (Nick Brimble), a scientist who heads a secret CIA experiment in mind control, programming soldiers to become virtually unstoppable killing machines when they're given the right commands.

The Navy recruits Cody and his talented crew to take Chappell and special agent Fletcher (William Hope) with them in an effort to destroy the facility and take down Lehder. Cody is promised that in exchange, he and his crew will be freed and cleared of the alleged misconduct that they were accused of and receive 100,000 dollars each. Suspicious, Cody quickly jettisons Fletcher, who turns out to be in league with Lehder. Fletcher tips off Lehder, and they quickly abandon Lehder's facility, leaving behind a few American prisoners as Trojan horses.

One team of Cody’s men commandeers a submarine, while the others secure the base and rescue the prisoners. The team fights its way past a tank, destroys the base, and escapes on the sub. But they end up stuck on the sub with some of the mind-controlled soldiers. After fighting off the soldiers and escaping from the sub, Cody and his crew realize that they must race to bring down Lehder before the rest of his soldiers claim them all.

Cast

• Steven Seagal as Chris Cody
• William Hope as Agent Fletcher
• Christine Adams as Dr. Susan Chappell
• Vinnie Jones as Henry
• Nick Brimble as Dr. Arian Lehder
• Alison King as Damita
• P. H. Moriarty as Chef
• Gary Daniels as Col. Sharpe
• Ross McCall as Plowden

Production

For all his experience in films, actor William Hope calls the set of Submerged as the most chaotic and hostile environment he has ever worked in: the film was shot mostly in Brazil coastal beaches of Ceara, where the heat was umbearable. As the mosquitos ate the crew away and the budget was cut to half of its original sum, and one quarter of it went to Seagal's pocket, tensions mounted, as the frustrated Seagal used to taunt Hope day and night, with remarks of "Oh, you poor boy, you look awful. Come here. Come to mother", a line from Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 that Clare Higgins uses before holding him and draining his lifeforce. Seagal would follow this with a kick to Hope's groin. Hope would go ballistic, a fist fight would ensue between Hope and Seagal and crew members would have to separate the two in a daily basis. Two crew members reported that Seagal did torture a defenseless dog for his amusement, during the filming in the favela, and killed it. Also, Seagal tormented the poor people of the slums, yelling for them to take cover inside a hut, just to follow this by setting fire on the hut and filming it, while the haunting score of Riz Ortolani played in the background. Seagal explained he was making a documentary called The Green Inferno. Producer Avi Lerner and the director also had a fight, when Hickox lost his temper, shoved an armed gun in the hands of Lerner and proceeded to yell at the producer and demand he shoot Seagal otherwise he would, when crew members finally intervened and let things cool off. Actor Vinnie Jones sided with Hickox and was very protective toward the fellow brit. The two remained friends after the experience.

The original script of the film was changed at the last minute: originally, the film was about giant ancient alien ships that appeared on the brazilian sky and exchanged their goods with the miserable peasants of a small village, in the mid-80s. Seagal was to play the part of the elderly of the village, an Antonio Conselheiro type of leader, for the poor people, but then his character was turned into an Ex-Marine. The alien angle was dropped and they turned the story into a The Manchurian Candidate type of film.

Director Anthony Hickox released the original cut of his film in September, 2007, which ran for 180 min. and restored the original storyline (that of Seagal as a spiritual leader for Brazilian losers, and the giant alien spacecraft).

The car chase scenes were shot in Rio de Janeiro, in one of its most notorious favelas: the "Favela da Rocinha". The government of Rio de Janeiro sued the film's producers when, after the scenes were shot and half of the favela was destroyed on sight, the company failed to pay them back. Marcola, one of Brazil's most infamous drug lords, put a price on the heads of the film's crew and Seagal, spreading the word that anyone who murdered Seagal would be an instant hero among the citizens of the Rocinha. This forced them to leave Brazil the very next day, making some reshots impossible. Actor Vinnie Jones said: "It (the filming) was crazy. The last day at the Rio de Janeiro slums, we were at this third rate favela, when someone delivered a package for the Submerged production team and left. It was a goat's boiled, severed head. The guy (recepcionist) told us that was a death threat. As soon as he saw the box, Seagal demanded he be relieved from the favela by armed security men, and hid under his bed 'till the lads came to transfer him to some other hotel, at Copacabana".

Seagal was removed to Copacabana, but the rest of the crew had problems during their last night. Staying at a local hostel, the crew members, including the rest of the cast, were surprised by the sound of machine guns blazzing against the hostel - it was the beginning of Marcola's revenge. No one was hurt, but the attack lasted for at least one hour, and destroyed the hostel. Hope, who was celebrating with an old flame, Kyra Gracie, in a third rate bar that night, only knew about the attack that following morning when he went back to the hostel to meet the group and found just a pile of woods, glasses, bodies, broken windows and teared down walls. Local Police Force was called. Submerged production team left Brazil early that morning.

Intelligence work by the Federal Police of Brazil tracked an armed drug dealer from Marcola's organization, who was at the international airport of Rio de Janeiro nearby - he was waiting for the flight that was supposed to carry the Submerged Production team back to the United States of America to take off, so he could take it down using a militar rocket launcher. The man was caught a few hours previous to the flight's taking off. Had the Police not intervened, the 747 Boeing would have been shot down from the skies.

The only good aspect of making Submerged] said Hope in an interview for Tatame Magazine was to have the pleasure of meeting Kyra after all those years. Hope was talking about Jiu-Jitsu superstar Kyra Gracie, with whom he had a relationship that ended four years prior. When they were shooting the film in the last months of 2004 at Favela da Rocinha, exploding every person and building they could find, Hope ran into Kyra, who was conducting a social Jiu-Jitsu project for the poor kids of the place. Hope and Kyra rekindled their relationship and remained good frieds. In Kyra's honour, Hope spent his last night in Rio with the fighter, in a brazilian bar, where they danced carried away by the melody of the song How Do You Keep the Music Playing, from the film Best Friends, with Goldie Hawn and Burt Reynolds.

External links

• Submerged at IMDb