Double Team

Double Team is the third movie that Van Damme has done for a former HONG-KONG action-movie director. He has done "Hard Target" for John Woo and "Maximum Risk" for Ringo Lam. Double Team is directed by rather splendid Tsui Hark. Hark is excellent at directing action-scenes and Double Team is a good way for him to start in Hollywood. Van Damme plays agent Jack Quinn, and is sent out to kill super-terrorist Stavros, who is played by Mickey Rourke. Quinn fails and is therefore sent sent to a place called "The Colony". "The Colony" is a place where the world's most dangerous terrorists/agents are sent. These agents/terrorists are too dangerous to go free on the street and too valuable to kill. Quinn escapes from the colony and goes after Stavroes for revenge. Quinn is helped by Yaz, who is played by the basket-star Dennis Rodmann. Double Team is full of well made action and martial-art scenes. However, it`s far from perfect. The whole plot is very silly, there are huge logical gaps and holes in the story and Mickey Rourke is far from convincing as a villain. Double Team isn`t a film for everybody. But it`s definetly worth to rent it for an action-fan. I give this movie 7 out of 10.

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.

I just love bad movies. Now many don't make the cut because they simply don't suck to the magnitude needed to make them a "bad classic". This film, however, rockets past others and makes no attempt to disguise its crap-value by including a good actor, plot twist, or a clever bit of dialogue. No, this movie fails (succeeds?) in all categories. I went to the premiere a couple of years back, and still regret that fateful day. Only one other film has traumatized me to that extent (I payed full admission for Congo on the premiere...). Sometimes, no amount of comments will prepare you for a true impact of a film. Schindler's List, Kids, Saving Private Ryan, and... Double Team. See this movie, you will never be the same again.

Double Team has to be seen to be believed. Hell, even the poster does. It exists in that delirious wasteland of the late 90's action genre, a place where anything can, and does go. As the genre evolved, the scientists deep within Hollywood's labs were trying out endless mind boggling action star team ups, even using a few celebrities that had never had a film to their name. In this particular twilight zone we get Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman sharing a spotlight. There's a pairing for ya. Van Damme plays a counter terrorist expert who miserably fails in preventing an attack from dangerous villain Stavros (Mickey Rourke), and is sent to The Colony, where disgraced agents are branded with all the snazzy technology the 90's had to offer, after which being sent back into duty. He needs inside helps to track down Stavros, and finds it in beyond eccentric arms dealer Yaz (Rodman), a whacko who mirrors the man's overblown real life persona. Together they make a run at Rourke, fireworks ensue, blah blah. It's a crappy flick made noticeable by the strange presence of Rodman, and marginally watchable by Rourke, who actually gives Stavros the tiniest glint of surprising gravity, despite how downright silly the whole enterprise is. Loaded with cheese, dated special effects and clichés, it ain't no picnic, but worth a glance during an inebriated late night channel switching blitz.

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...