Ultime Menace

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.

As such an admirer of Jean-Claude Van Damme, watching him make stuff like this is really disheartening to be honest with you all. I grew up with his movies, and whilst not all of them were great, he has provided me with many hours of entertainment with classics such as Bloodsport, Universal Soldier, and Time Cop. Even recently he has really upped his game with some DTV gems like Until Death, Wake Of Death, Replicant, Assassination Games, and In Hell. But this feels like something that Steven Seagal rejected. It doesn't have much action to speak of, and when it does happen, we get a lot of frustrating shaky camera work that really hampers what little it has going for it. It doesn't help that I can't stand politics. Anything to do with it, I tend to lose interest in quickly. There are a few exceptions to this rule where I end up enjoying them, but this was bloody terrible. Jean-Claude Van Damme isn't really trying all that much here. He phones it in, but he can't overcome the weak script or poor pacing issues. I realize he has toned down his histrionics over the last few years, but this movie really lets him down. The rest of the cast do what they have to do, but none of them really stand out all that much

Final Thoughts: He's made some really good DTV gems since this awful film, but this is without a doubt one of the worst movies he has ever done. It's up there with Double Team, Black Eagle, and Derailed. Even die hard JCVD fans (I consider myself one of them!) will be disappointed by this. The lack of interest really sinks this one

3/10

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

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)

Commander Sam Keenan is appointed second-in-command at the US Embassy in Moldavia, mere hours before the Ambassador is killed. The streets are full of insurgents attempting a violent uprising against the democratically elected president, who is now in the care of the US within the embassy. However with the insurgents laying siege outside and rescue many hours away, options for survival and limited and Keenan comes under pressure from without and within.

In a way I suppose we should see it as Van Damme returning to Europe to use his American-found fame to bolster film-making in Europe, however another way to see it is that his appeal has dwindled badly and he has taken to doing basic action films in Eastern European to squeeze every last penny out of the budget. Watching this film among others, it is hard to avoid the fact that the truth is almost undoubtedly the latter. The plot is fairly basic but in essence it is a war-zone version of Assault on Precinct 13. So what we are a looking for is a ratcheting up of tension across the film, with the silence being harder to watch than the action – which by extension is more exciting for its quality as payoff.

Sadly that is not what the film delivers because instead everything is played out as basic as you like, with minimal tension, obvious plotting, wooden acting and action that plays like they all just hoped having shots of gunfire would be sufficient to justify it as an "action film". It is never awful by any means and indeed for those trawling the cable listings looking for something to have on like visual wallpaper, you could do much worse. But this is hardly praise and all through the film I never shook the feeling of it being a cu-price low rent affair with no aspirations beyond the bottom shelf of the video store and maybe a 2am slot on a cable station. Obviously there is a limited amount of money to play with but this is only an excuse for scale – not for how good a film it is and director Fellows isn't able to do much. His cast don't help, with Van Damme on auto-pilot (without even much action to speak of for him), Cox filling a tired cliché of a female role and nobody else making an impression even if they had been given the material. The Eastern European villains are so bland and generic that even modern video games can produce a more realistic cast of characters.

Second in Command will be found on poor slots on so-so TV stations, was made in Eastern Europe and stars Jean-Claude Van Damme so really one could say that the clues are all right there for you to see for yourself. If you do decide to watch it then please note that it does live up to the low standards it suggests it will have and, while too bland to be really awful, there isn't much about it worth seeing.