In Hell

"In Hell" is a prison movie -- and as we all know -- prison movies come with their own set of clichés. You know the type... the ruthless head prison guard, a corrupt warden, inmates of various nationalities and tendencies complete with their own stories all within the worst of living conditions. "In Hell" couples this with an utterly brutal and ultimately dehumanizing set of fight pieces set inside the corrupt lifeless Russian prison that come together to form the latest opus from Ringo Lam and Van Damme. Now you'll either look past these clichés maybe even embrace them and enjoy the movie as-is or you won't and should turn back now. Those heeding the warning will venture to find a movie akin to the 'been-there-seen-that' trait, but with a Van Damme twist and shaped by the dark foreboding hand of Ringo Lam.

"In Hell" finds Kyle LeBlanc (Van Damme) living in the former people's republic. Married and working at a steel mill, we get the notion pretty fast that his marriage has taken a few bumps because of his job's placement. He promises to make things right, but before he can his wife is systematically murdered. In court justice is corrupt and Kyle has to find vengeance in the form of a guard's firearm just outside the courtroom as he kills his wife's murderer in a fit of cold blood. The next we see of Kyle he is a torn weary man on a bus in handcuffs on his way to his new life inside the worst prison man has ever seen. A prison where there is no escape and men fight to the death. This is the premise of "In Hell".

The prison itself is this cold, dark, violent and repulsive rat trap of a place. It feels almost too real. You feel the coldness, the destruction of mankind happening within it's walls through Kyle, the subhuman food and lodging, everything. It's there. Kyle wants out and so will you.

Let me just say that Van Damme's latest efforts have been a mixed bag (and that's being kind). The truth is he's fallen quite a ways from his "Universal Soldier" days and that's what makes "In Hell" such a striking success. This isn't a patterned Van Damme movie. This isn't Van Damme playing Van Damme. The fighting scenes don't even display the usual Van Damme-ish feel to them and that's definitely a good thing. They aren't highly complicated or choreographed. There is no video effects or weird camera angles of any sort to highlight the fighting. It's just raw primitive fighting. No mastering of the martial arts just fisticuffs that are brutal and short to the point.

If you watch your share of b-movies some familiar faces in the supporting cast pop up too. Names like Juan Fernández, Robert LaSardo and real life ex-pro footballer Lawrence Taylor (Any Given Sunday) aptly named prisoner "451" that you'll have to see the film to understand why.

"In Hell" is a real nice chance of pace for Van Damme and for that reason alone, I recommend this movie. Don't get me wrong. "In Hell" is not striking movie-making, but for a DTV prison-farce starring Van Damme of all people it's decent.

This movie struck me as strange. I am used to a Van Damme as in Kickboxer, Bloodsport and Universal Soldier. And now this. One hardly recognises Van Damme. Seems like he actually is becoming an actor. Though the story is anything but original, it is quite well executed. The acting is above average for a direct-to-video-production. Action scenes are good, quite brutal and graphic - but that's about what I expected - why else would one want to watch a Van Damme movie? Certainly not because of the story. In Van Damme movies the "storyline" so far always was a lame excuse for one good old fashioned action scene after the other.

And that is the strange thing: With this expectation you wont exactly be disappointed, but strangely surprised. This movie has more to offer, especially Van Damme. I'm going as far as to claim that this movie would get better critics and a better reception if it wasn't Van Damme playing the lead. You just aren't used to see Van Damme this way.

That isn't a bad thing, it's just so unfamiliar, unusual. But - Let's get used to it. If this is the direction van Damme is taking, I'm happy with it.

Van Damme's latest effort on paper reads much like many other films he has done, in which he finds himself in a situation when he must participate in illegally set up fights. This film being set in prison is also particularly similar to Death Warrant. These are really where the similarities end because this is more dramatic and less flashy than those. There are no sweeping Van Damme kicks played in glorious slow motion, he doesn't seem invincible and is not able to summon great amounts of strength to down 7ft behemoths in one punch, in this film he is an ordinary guy. If he fights someone who looks like they could take him, then he will have a tough time, and get beat up.

This film allows JC to play a character with some depth and some emotion, a character who we sympathise with in the way his wife's death effects him. He kills his wife's murderer when he is let free and so goes to jail and we see the way in which his character goes on a downward spiral without his wife. While this film attempts to have a sympathetic character it has such a hackneyed script, full of clichés that it ends having ultimately wasted one of Van Damme's best performances and some classy direction from Ringo Lam. He is a grade above other b-movie directors and this film looks great, he worked with a good cinematographer and editor to make this look well beyond its 15 million or so budget.

There isn't a single surprise in the film and many of the supporting cast are bad but the better actors all produce some good moments. You feel for certain characters, it is a shame that the majority of the crew and cast aren't matches for the more talented members, however it does allow JC to stand out.

The fights are not about being flash they are rough and ready and pack a punch, and are superbly edited. It makes a change for Van Damme but far more watchable than other films like Nowhere to Run which showed no flashy martial arts. The fighting in this is more like proper wrestling.

As with many low budget movies there are problems with the special effects, such as dodgy CGI airplanes and a poor synth score. In the end though the film was an enjoyable watch while not great it featured quality in the direction and with a decent performance by Van Dammes standards, were not talking Academy awards by any means but possibly a Video Premiere award nomination. ***

Post the release of Timecop in 1994, or arguably Sudden Death the year after, Jean Claude Van Damme has churned out sub-standard actioners that even his undemanding fans have struggled to praise. His career reaching a nadir with the quite dreadful Derailed in 2002. He was literally stuck in the kind of straight to DVD hell that Steven Seagal has been in for the last 15 years. So it was something of a surprise to find that this 2003 film bucked the trend considerably. Now this is no rocket science head scratcher for the action genre fan, it's riddled with prison movie clichés and is as unoriginal as it gets. But it finds Van Damme filling out a role with more depth than the standard beefcake hero roles he was doing in his sleep. If this was a shift that he personally chose to do after having enough of the "for the money only films?" I'm not quite sure, but the result is a brutalistic action piece that contains possibly his second best performance after the critically praised JCVD in 2008.

The plot is simplicity extreme, Van Damme stars as Kyle LeBlanc, who along with his wife is residing in Russia due to work commitments. His wife is raped and murdered and Kyle is aghast as the Russian courts free the culprit on technicalities and bribery sweeteners. He's not having that so promptly guns down the man and gets sent to a hell hole prison for life. Here violence and sexual assault are the order of the day, with the governor happy to put on brutal fights to the death purely for his, and his friends, entertainment. Kyle is not a violent man but he's forced to become violent just to survive.

Yes it's a pretty formulaic as it sounds, you could run thru about ten prison based movies and find the best bits of them used in here. But it does work because of Van Damme's character. He's a good man thrust into a violent world, he gets bullied, he gets desperate, he is out of his depth. It's here that the film differs in the Belgian's career, for he doesn't flex his martial arts muscles, there's no high kick, slow-mo set pieces here. This sees him fighting normal man style, and this only after going thru a Rocky Balboa type training regime. As expected, the fight scenes are violent and Van Damme is immensely competent executing them. Hell! There's even religious and spiritual metaphors in here! I kid you not. In Hell is a must for action film fans, and certainly a must for Van Damme fans who gave up on him by the late 1990s. You will not be surprised by how the plot unfolds, and a couple of corny scenes drop in to say hello (ghost visitations, dear me), but you hopefully will be surprised at Van Damme's performance. And of course there's always some serious buttock kicking action to chew on as well. 7/10

I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this film, as it was a very hard hitting and brutal drama, which I didn't expect from a Van Damme film. Certain scenes I found profoundly disturbing, but also very gripping and compelling. I think this film deserved more praise than it recieved on it's release, but fans of Van Damme will like it anyway!!! It may also come as a surprise to a more varied movie goer, like it did to me.