Seagal is one of the few stars who started his career as a leading man, and from 1988s Above The Law to Under Siege he was one of the biggest box-office draws of the nineties. He was also if the many stories are true an ego maniac and bully, so when he starred in and directed the unintentionally hilarious On Deadly Ground, nobody felt sorry it was his first bomb. Seagal struggled to regain his powers after that, but after taking a break for a few years, he scored an unexpected hit with Exit Wounds. The success of that was short lived; he put on a lot of weight for his next movie and was laughed off the screen by audiences. He then went to DVD hell, where he stars in basically the same movie again and again. The budgets might get smaller while his waist only gets bigger, but he still earns huge cheques for them and occasionally reappears on the big screen, like his bad guy turn in Machete.
