Double Team

The script for Double Team was originally called "The Colony" and by several accounts, it was actually quite good. Apparently, it went through many major alterations on its way to production until the final product bore little resemblance in tone and quality to the original script. Does this mean Double Team is a disaster? Not really, but its clear all the changes created some problems.

On the one hand, you have the participation of famed Hong Kong director Tsui Hark and world-class cinematographer Peter Pau. They manage to create some of the coolest, trippiest, most fantastical visuals this side of a MTV video and better still, do so without the excessively choppy editing that usually accompanies "MTV-style" films. You actually get to appreciate the luxuriously-shot images, though the film is by no means slow-paced. Better still, it's one of the few Van Damme movies that realizes the best Van Damme movies are the ones which absolutely never rely on Van Damme's acting (or anyone else's for that matter) to carry the film along. It's all action, goofily entertaining plot twists, and sweet visuals. As an action-packed, overblown, eye-candy fantasy, Double Team works very well.

On the other hand, it's painfully obvious that Double Team used to have a smarter script which called for a far more subtle and serious approach. Had these "intelligent" elements been completely erased or dumbed-down for the final product, this wouldn't have been a problem. However, it seems that some of the more subtle plot developments were left in and they do NOT mesh well with Tsui's and the rest of the final script's "jackhammer" approach to the story. For example, at one point a prescription label left on the wall is supposed to be noticed by Van Damme's character who then uses the name of the doctor on the label as a clue. However, unless you're paying very very close attention you'd never know that. It's so small on screen, the label may as well have been blank. And the shot where the label is taken off the prescription bottle is far too quick and unclear. A single extra shot showing a closeup of the label would've cleared things up immensely. But it never happens. The film contains several instances like this where a single clarifying shot or an extra line of explanatory dialogue would've made things much clearer. The result is that what seem like glaring plot holes (even for this kind of movie) are in fact due to badly explained plot points. Such an obscure presentation might have worked on a quieter, more "intelligent" spy film where the audience knows they aren't going to be spoon-fed the plot. But after 40 minutes of terrible one-liners and ridiculous action, the last thing that should be required of Double Team's audience is to suddenly pay close attention to what's happening.

I don't know whether Tsui Hark was trying to keep in some subtle elements while reconciling it with the rapid-fire approach, or whether he just didn't care about such details and wanted to keep things moving (Probably the latter, as his subsequent movie, Knock Off, experimented with this abstract, to-hell-with-storytelling visual approach to the nth degree). Whatever the case, the result is a pretty wild but somewhat confusing action movie that could've been much better with minor changes.

Continuing the tradition of successful Hong Kong directors going to Hollywood only to end up directing Jean-Claude Van Damme movies comes Tsui Hark with 'Double Team'. John Woo must have gotten lucky when he went to Hollywood: Ringo Lam is still making Van Damme movies, and Tsui Hark went back to Hong Kong after this and 'Knock Off'. I have nothing against Van Damme, but he seems to be some sort of trial-by-fire for any Hong Kong director with ambitions of making action films in Hollywood: If a director succeeds, he go on to Dolph Lundgren and then mainstream Hollywood action (John Woo), otherwise the director is faced with sticking with Van Damme movies or going back to Hong Kong.

Counter-terrorist Jack Quinn (Van Damme) is planning to retire after one final mission to nail the villainous Stavros (Mickey Rourke). The mission goes incredibly wrong: Stravos gets away, but somehow his son is killed in the cross-fire. Out for revenge, Stavros kidnaps the pregnant Kathryn Quinn (Natacha Lindinger), and the only way Jack can save is wife is team up with Yaz (Dennis Rodman) and kick-box his way to a happy ending.

Watching 'Double Team', I thought it was pretty clear than even Van Damme realizes that his movies are a joke to all but the most hardcore of action fans. Australian sketch comedy show 'Full Frontal' (featuring a not-so-famous Eric Bana) regularly took stabs at Van Damme for a good year or so ("YOU LAUGHTER CRACKIN' AT ME? ARRRGGGHHHHH!"), coincidentally around when 'Double Team' would have been released. At no point does 'Double Team' make any attempt to be taken as a serious action movie. All the fight scenes are played for laughs, if only slight chuckles. Van Damme gets to fight a tiger and use a coke-machine to shield himself from an explosion. All it really amounts to be is 90 minutes of action fun.

While fans of director Tsui Hark would be disappointed with this effort, something good came of Hark's short-lived collaborations with Van Damme: He went back to Hong Kong and directed the incredibly awesome 'Time and Tide' (which did not feature Jean-Claude Van Damme at all).

'Double Team' doesn't come to close to being one of Van Damme's best, and it might not even please hard-core Van Damme fans, but its all in good fun - 5/10

A lot of people seem to forget that Van Damme isn't trying to make a really great movie. He doesn't usually care about the plot or the acting. He wants to make an action movie. That is the only reason I ever watch his movies and he never fails to deliver, including in this movie. Sure you cringe at the corny acting and dialogue when it happens, but the action sequences totally make up for it. I also enjoy when a movie doesn't take place in the US or Canada. I'm just bored with that. In this movie they go to Antwerp and Rome. Very cool settings for the movie. Over all I was quite pleased. The director, Tsui Hark (I have NO idea how you pronounce that), is always quite reliable in making a good action movie. It was just a good action movie, people. Don't look at it for more than what it was.

Look before i start my review lets be honest about this movie, the movie is dumb and really does not make sense really a movie with Van Damme and Dennis Rodman really what do you expect. But lets also be clear this movie could be a lot of fun viewed in the right light and could almost be considered a really fun piece of garbage. Van Damme starts as a agent who is after Mickey Rourke (really Mickey really) while after Mickey, Mickey wife and child gets killed and now Mickey is really bad and spends the whole film trying to kill Van Damme. Van Damme needs help and so he enlist the help of Dennis Rodman(what did the Chicago Bulls cut him from the roster) who is a gun dealer. Well that is all the plot you really need, I mean what i just described could be action gold, not really i mean there is a lot of plot holes and a lot of scenes that just don't make sense. And now i come to the great director Tsui Hark ( i know if you just seen this film and his other movie starting Van Damme Knock Off you could be asking yourself "great director my ---") the director who gave us Once upon a time in china 1,2,3,4,5 and Pecking Opera Blues and other great hong kong movies. But this movie is not even in the same area code to these great movies but he does direct the film for all he's worth and does keep the movie flowing at a great pace and does give us a lot of action and Tsui at least make Van Damme look good as he enlist the great Sammo Hung to do the fights(lets be clear that the stuntman does most of the action for Van Damme) and Tsui Hark even got the great Peter Pau to shoot the film. Yes Peter Pau who went on to win a Oscar a couple years later for shooting Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In the end all i could say is that you could find worse movies starting Van Damme (there is too many to count) and you could find better like Hard Target,Timecop,or maybe Sudden Death. Double Team get a C+. So there Thank You.

Movie itself it quite catchy - the fight of Jack with Asian man in the hotel room was the best, imho...

But some things are under critics. Like exploding on the arena - when eventually whole the building is got blown away - what 'bad guy' of Mickey Rourke was thinking about when placing mines of such explosive power there? :) Or what was on 'good guy' of Dennis Rodman's mind when swapping some mine marks? To play the game 'who dies first - good Jack or bad Stavros? A big number of gotchas that may be forgiven only because it's just an action. Plain action with good fights and explosions...