CIA dirty deeds man John Dresham and Black Ops organiser Anthony Chapel hire John Seeger and his crew for a mission in the French-controlled Galmoral Island in Southern Africa. They tell them they are helping the locals when in reality they just want to get rich on oil and diamonds. John gets steamed when the mission goes wrong. Some of his soldiers take the French Ambassador and his family hostage for leverage and later blow them all up. The French close in on them, his best friend Radio Jones is killed, and Maxine Barnol, his spy posing as a journalist, suggests CIA involvement. John heads back to the US and goes to the home of Radio's wife Shondra, tells her the news, and then promises her that he'll take care of her and her young son Eddie. While there he kills two of Dresham's men sent to kill him and discovers Dresham's implication. Chapel again hires the team of mercenaries, kidnapping Shondra and Eddie to force John into cooperating. The mission involves rescuing Kamal Dasan, the son of prominent gun runner Ahmet Dasan, who has been arrested and thrown into the Randveld Prison outside of Cape Town, South Africa, and is due to be transferred to the States. Dresham discovers the job but not its object and when he bumps into Maxine he forces her to work for him instead of Chapel. Maxine leads him to believe that the target is the safe of the bank of South Africa and Dresham uses his CIA influence to be shown round the security installation. Maxine listens attentively and takes photos. John leads Dresham in circles but when the mercenaries break into the prison Kamal isn't there any more and the bad elements of the team get killed. Next stop the bank. In the safe John persuades the Greeks to arrest Kamal's father, then escapes making sure Dresham will be arrested too. Finally, with a few faithful members of his team, John rescues Shondra and Eddie and kills Chapel and his guards.
Filming took 28 days. The director later said "the story was confusing because there were four writers on the film and things were left over from draft to draft. I pointed all this out but the producers but they did not care. Also the producers cut scenenumber 101 from the shooting schedule that played right in the middle of the film it caused a domino effect before and after. That scene was the tie up in the movie. I talked until I was blue in the face trying to convince them the decision was a huge mistake. They did not care." Fauntleroy said scene 101 was where Maxine and Seeger meet up and set the plan in motion to expose Chapel and Dresham. "A fight sequence was to take place as Seeger left the Hotel where Seagal had to take on four guys so Maxine could slip away." Fauntleroy claims the producers "just hated Steven and their whole existence was to destroy him, staff of personal, and the film."
Lawsuit
Fauntleroy claimed the day he arrived on the film the producers "showed me a law suit that had already been prepared and was ready to file if Steven gave them any problems." Nu Image, Inc., and Kill Master Productions sued Seagal for $14 million, claiming the actor caused production delays on the set of "Mercenary" and a second film, Today You Die by routinely arriving late on the set, rewriting the script and allowing members of his entourage to interfere with the work of crew members. The lawsuit was settled out of court.
