Wonderful Movie

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The acting in this movie is really good.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is an odd movie. Normally, I would not give this kind of movie much of a chance, but it lured me in over some free time on a Sunday.I've liked Van Damme, but also thought he was terribly cheesy. This film showcases enough of the positives. In 1997, Van Damme was still a viable commodity, and takes this role seriously, and goes through a clichéd but well-executed transformation from down-and-out to powerful avenger. THe fight sequences are exciting and executed in a top-notch manner.The film is redeemed greatly by Mickey Rourke, who plays a brilliant villain, and this film seems to have been shot before his plastic surgery, and makes you wonder again what he was ever thinking to go through with that surgery, because his charisma just explodes off the screen.The film starts terribly weak, but gains momentum midpoint and ends well, differing from the huge majority of failed films that start strong and dwindle to a weak end. THis is its greatest liability. It simply seems so ridiculous at the start, and Rodman, not a professional actor, starts quite weak, but seems at least mostly credible by the end of the film. By the end of the film, I actually bought Rodman as an actor and was ready to see more, at least in a supporting role.THe film has some original set pieces, and what seem like reasonably advanced effects, and well-executed action sequences, that were clearly done by a more professional team than an average B movie would warrant. Of course, this wasn't meant to be a B movie at the time, and clearly had a decent budget that I doubt was recouped. There are also some odd references to the KAL shoot down of the 1980s that I was really surprised made it into this film, which gave it a brief air of credibility in the political science realm.Anyway, far from a masterpiece, and fairly clichéd, but genuinely entertaining if given a chance. Again, Rourke really makes a big difference here.

My first thought after I watched this movie was, that the cast were made before the storyline. It seems as if the focus is on showing the audience what a cool guy Rodman is and what a hard and powerful guy van Damme is. The story is therefor not so necessary. The main characters are even for a action-movie niggling. There are the supporting characters quit more interesting like a martial-arts fighter in the hotel with a knife between his toes or the character of Goldsmythe, awesome played by Paul Freeman. But as I said, this movie was made for van Damme and Rodman and not for actors.The action-scenes are moving between "already seen in other action-movies" and ridiculous. Especially the ending with a tiger and a product placement for a soft drink company appeals unwanted funny.

Jack Quinn(Jean Claude Van Damme, who gets to do plenty of the high kicks that he's famous for) retires from being a counter-terrorist, is brought back(yup, the clichés, formulaic nature and stereotypes that drown every line of dialog and every other aspect of the writing in this come in right at the beginning) to take out Stavros(Rourke, who makes for a cool villain and comes off as a genuine match to him, in the realms of fighting and tactics), who used to... uh... well, now he's going to... hm... you know, I have no clue. Anyway, it goes wrong, his son dies in the chaos(this time, it's personal?), and JCVD is sent to The Colony, a secret(somehow...) think-tank comprised of former agents and enemies, leading us to wonder why they don't kill each other(and there literally appears to be no guards there... heck, even if it meant their death, they might be fanatic enough), they can move about though they have to check in at specific times. Along the way he also meets Yaz(...I know all three of those letters, but they don't go together like that), a world-class arms dealer(Rodman, who also gets to take part in the decently choreographed and covered martial arts of which there is a pretty good amount) in a… let's call it a bi-curious nightclub, and they throw in some basketball references(because, and this may surprise you, apparently Dennis dabbled in that field, briefly). He's only in half of it, but he can't act and at times he doesn't seem capable of shutting up(man, does he get to be obnoxious). This is full of over the top action where physics take a back seat, there is excessive use of Dutch angles, and, like Speed, exhausting if you're not in the mood for it. Is it fun? Well, if you leave your brain at the door, and you aren't distracted by really goofy, out of place stuff... like this weird "focus" or sixth sense kind of thing to both the hero and bad guy. And the tigers. This is actually downright hard to follow at points, because of how... dumb it is. There is brief moderate to strong language in this. The DVD comes with a trailer. I recommend this to adrenaline junkies. 5/10

This is not a very good movie, but pretty good, stylish and enjoyable, so one of Van Damme's bests. I don't see Jean Claude Van Damme as a bad actor, may be because I like him, he was one of my childhood heroes. It seems that he did what people wanted from him. Some say that he is hopelessly untalented, but he has a pulling power, hasn't he? Otherwise, now there would not have been a lot of Van Damme fans, even if they have lessened day after day. I watched almost all his films except his first movie and a few of his recent movies and to me Double Team is from his golden period. By the way, I learned that Tsui Hark hates John Woo's The Killer. If you ask me, he is absolutely right. Because according to many people The Killer is a great action film, but to it was extremely slow paced except the final part and not stylish. Probably, like me, Hark had sat down to watch an action movie, but it was not. Double Team is non stop action. In comparison with some recent soap bubble and very slow paced action movies like The Sentinel or The Shooter, Double Team is not only very fast paced, but also pretty stylish. However, the most odd thing is that even the ratings of the awful movies of Van Damme such as Second in Command, Wake of Death, In Hell, The Order or Inferno are higher than Double Team. ??? The whole movie is fun owing to Hark, Van Damme and Rodman who adds color to the movie. Watching Rourke who brings a pessimistic tone to the movie is also interesting. The operation in the funfair part consists of very stylish action scenes. This colorful part is one of the best parts of the movie. As you know, all of the early Van Damme films include training scenes, they are famous for those scenes, too (to me) In Double Team, there is a training scene too. The only flawed point comes in the end, the end was unrealistic with bad CGI. And the images I have not forgotten since 1997. The face of Van Damme in the end of the hospital scene, the face of Mickey Rourke in the stadium, finger scene and Rodman's question: ''Did you open it?''