Second in Command

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)

Saw this film on DVD.. Van Damme plays Sam Keenan who's just been appointed to Second in Command where's he stationed at an East European country.. There, he finds himself at a situation where the President has been confined at an American Embassy from a group of ruthless soldiers..

As things gets worse, Keenan must do all he can stop the soldiers and save the President..

For this type of film, it's a bit better than some of the other Van Damme films I've seen..

I saw another film on TV called 'IN HELL'.. I felt that this film was terrible. So shallow and not entertaining enough..

In 'SECOND OF COMMAND', we see Van Damme playing a Marine.. Something we don't usually see him play as.. But it's something that Van Damme fans would love to see..

I also believe that Van Damme should stick to good roles that fans will definitely see over and over again.. Rather than work on something that is so boring and horribly made..

It's not bad.. Pretty good movie.. I hope JCVD will do and make better films in future..

6 out of 10!

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

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

The tempo of this film is just all over the place. It pretty much instantly drops into action, but then the audio doesn't change suggesting something exciting should happen, when the following scene is just guys talking in an office. Then when action kicks in again it's brought on in a lurch, so whilst it's not surprising, it's not built up to either. The plot is okay, very 'America saves the world', or to be specific, 'Moldavia'.

The acting isn't particularly inspired and the dialogue nothing special, these again aren't helped by the audio. People talking in an empty room with nothing else to engage you with isn't too riveting. Plus, whilst the budget must have been fairly decent, on account of all the helicopter shots, etc., certain parts just come across as cheap. There are graphics, such as the army's ETA or sight through binoculars, which seem like they're more from a video game of the same period.

JCVD is the major draw here, but I wouldn't particularly say he's utilised or that this is a typical JCVD film. His martial arts aren't used for ages, and when they are, the fight scene looks a little lame due to camera shots. Many edgy shots throughout, poorly done.

Still, the ending is kind of interesting, it at least has an enticing ending (despite being predictable, the false ending is a little obvious). It doesn't do a lot right, but it's not atrocious, although I'd choose many JCVD films before this one.