Second in Command

In the Eastern European nation of Moldavia, the new appointed prime minister is facing some political resistance, where some figures want to take him down. To do so, they plan a sniper to shoot an innocent civilian, which makes it look like the prime minister's guards were shooting. Riots break out and it's up to American marine Sam Keenan to get the prime minister to the American Embassy for protection. Soon they find out there's a large militia group outside the Embassy and they want the prime minister. So the small group of American soldiers and civilians hold up inside and try to wait for reinforcements, while the well-armed insurgents surround the building.

Jean Claude Van Damme has kind of been in the wilderness of churning out straight to DVD junk over the last decade, but honestly on this occasion what entertaining junk "Second in Command" turned out to be. As Van Damme action vehicles go, "Second in Command" is a modest action thriller joint that delivers the goods in a fast-paced and intense fashion, even though the whole one-idea set-up is familiarly derived. It does comes off, though. "The Alamo" reference is fitting to what you're seeing and it also takes some tips from Ridley Scott's frenetic "Black Hawk Down". The premise starts off at a breakneck pace and then tightly builds up to its chaotic siege situation with a exhilarating climax with some organic grit. Along the way it offers up a surprise or two and there's no real political interference in how they shape the story, despite the topic at hand and flawed nature. Logic is lacking and it's far from clever. The basic script won't set the film alight, but never falls into any cheesy mumbling. It's an old school layout with new technology adding to the glitz. The camera-work has that natural doco-style intrusion with many nauseating movements, fast editing is razor sharp, slow-motion gets a look in and the musical score has a cutting techno jibe that stays in the background. I usually can't stand these types of novel techniques, but it was easy to swallow because it never gets overwhelmed by it all.

The action scenes, which for this type of film is what we are actually hanging around for. Are handled with great vigour and the set-pieces can raise a sweat. Those looking for Van Damme's crisply striking martial arts skills will get very little of it, even though it boasts a few exciting one-one combat scenes (mainly the climax with the lead bad guy), but instead there are ample explosions and raining gunfire that makes sure this parade is aggressively violent. There's plenty of bang for your buck! The robust direction by Simon Fellows can build up the tension effectively and it does well to staying to its strengths, as it feels larger than it actually is, because it works around its budget restraints to achieve an honest attempt. The film location was in Romania, but you can easily tell when they were staged on sets and the real stock footage interwoven into the film sticks out clearly. They do get that washed out look with a dusty and at times hazy air forming in certain sequences. Jean Claude Van Damme is capably good and fit's the mould perfectly, with his downtrodden and workman like performance of a more beatable and humane character than anything overly heroic. Yeah he ain't bad at all. The rest of the support performances are agreeable enough.

"Second in Command" is a bold, noisy, ultra-zippy action film, which doesn't kick up anything of special importance or originality, but to simply entertain. It enjoyably succeeds and never lets a flat note get hold.

The film sees Van Damme star as Sam Keenan who is given the task of protecting the new president of Moldavia (made up? Maybe!) from violent protesters and ardent supporters of the country's previous regime. Essentially this is a siege movie, and with a plot somewhat resembling Dolph Lundgren's The Defender. Both movies are very similarly toned, however while Lundgren received mostly positives from that film (and more so from his directorial follow up the Mechanik) Van Damme will probably not earn the plaudits on this one. Now the man himself is not the problem, but the film suffers from amateurish direction and overly ambitious delivery of it's ideas in which the film tries to deliver the requisite amount of atypically military imagery. For instance helicopters make appearances in this film, only mostly they are poorly done CGI helicopters. As such the films attempt to look more expensive results in it looking cheaper. This is where SIC fails and where The Defender did not.

The direction from Simon Fellows lacks imagination, cohesion and competence. The trouble is the director is too quick to try and mimic certain styles from other directors. There is also too much compensation made in the editing room. Many of Fellow's stylistic choices do not work and only serve to hinder the film and whereas Dolph Lundgren made the Defender taut and polished, SIC is sometimes a little slipshod. However as the film progresses, Fellows gets a little more controlled. On a technical standpoint the rest of the film is okay, with mostly polished cinematography and an okay musical score.

The cast are good with Van Damme ably supported by Raz Adoti, Julie Cox and Alan Mckenna and William Tapley. Jean Claude himself is good in a pretty straight down the middle kind of role. He's not required to stretch as much as in Wake Of Death, but Van Damme gives his role a humanity and the role some conviction and thus adds depth to the 2 dimensional character as written on the page. Van Damme is certainly developing as an actor and he now adds so much to roles that other action stars would simply do competently. JC has improved so much and in regards to the action stars of the moment Van Damme is the most interesting as an actor. I certainly hope he stretches himself in future roles, cause I think having matured as a person he has a world weariness to him and an inner depth that shows up in his last few roles and there is now something going on behind those eyes.

The action in the film is okay. In terms of hand to hand combat there as some nice brief flourishes from JC, and there's a average length fight scene at the end but that suffers from poor editing and choice of shots. As for the rest it's primarily gunplay and Fellows chooses to go docu style which half walks and half doesn't. However the last half hour of the film is mostly action and the pace picks up nicely and we have a good amount of explosions going on.

Overall this is not a write off and by no means one of Van Dammes worst. It's good to have him back after a long wait following Wake Of Death, but understandably some fans may be disappointed. I can only say to them that Hard Corps promises much more and that also this film is far better than Seagal's recent turkeys. **1/2

Jean-Claude Van Damme again as one army man , here he is an US commander assigned as second-in-command to the American Embassy in an Eastern European country called Moldavia . Then , communist rebels try a state coup . The official gets free the President and they take shelter into US Embassy nearly deserted that encounters itself under siege by violent insurgents . Meanwhile , Van Damme saves the damsel in disgrace, an enticing journalist (Julie Cox) and he along with a detachment of soldiers fight against nasty attackers which have surrounded the siege .

The picture packs noisy action , shoot-outs , explosions, politic intrigues and minimum characterization . It's exciting and tense , at time lackluster action film , but the blown ups , struggles , gun-play are well done in this routine actioner . The story is plenty of firepower , action packed , fights though is added an interesting politic suspense . Scott Adkins , who subsequently starred some film with Van Damme , was offered an important role but could not sign for it due to other commitments . Jean Claude Van Damme is fine as action hero in this middling budget film . Long time ago he played big budget movies (Time cop, Universal soldier, Double team , Hard target) , he nowadays makes low budget and directly to video (Derailed, Wake of death, In hell) like in his first films (Black eagle, Cyborg , Bloodsport). The film was well photographed by Douglas Milsone (Dungeons and dragons, Sunchaser, Body of evidence) in natural scenarios of Rumania though the coup détat was happened in Moldavia (ex-Republic of Russia) . The motion picture was professionally directed by Simon Fellows who directed a Wesley Snipes vehicle (7 seconds) and he recently directed ¨Until death¨ again with Jean Claude Van Damme . The film will appeal to action genre enthusiasts . Pointlessly energetic and occasionally fun for only the true devotee of main actor . It's a must see for Van Damme fans .

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as a soldier who becomes the first in command after the ambassador is murdered by terrorists, along the way Van Damme comes up with a plan to get the soldiers and civilians out before the terrorists take over. Second In Command is one of Van Damme's more one note efforts. One in which reminds one of the vastly superior Sudden Death, however the problem with Second In Command is that it's just plain boring. Van Damme doesn't have really any hand to hand combat sequences and the shootouts are rarely exciting. Fellows tries to go for suspense and fails because the situation is so clichéd and the movie so uninspired. It's as if all the planning went on how to get Van Damme in the position of power and then didn't know what to do with the plot. In other words there just isn't enough plot or momentum in the story to make this all that entertaining. It's a movie that's forgettable and downright dull.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

This is pretty run of the mill stuff.

Its a bit more of an understated JCVD and that's not a bad thing.

The action is a bit basic as is the plot.

Would I watch it twice? No

Did I feel like I was suffering when I watched it? No