Double Team (1997)

 

Oh boy, this will be painful. 

You see, even if you like both Jean-Claude Van Damme and director Tsui Hark, this is still not a good film by any stretch of the imagination. The plot is nonsensical, the acting is horrid, the editing seizure inducing and pretty much just an all around mess. 

It is shot extremely stylishly, though.

Van Damme is Jack Quinn, a superb CIA operative who hunts down terrorists (mostly). He has retired to his pregnant wife, but is convinced to do one last job in order to catch Stavros (Rourke), the one that got away. But during the mission, Stavros' wife and child are shot by accident and now it's personal.

Because of course it is.

Jack is left for dead and wakes up at a place called The Institute, where a lot of former agents and villains - all presumed dead, by the way - are used as a thinktank to counteract global terrorism. You technically can't escape this place, but of course Quinn finds a way and teams up with Yaz (Rodman), an arms dealer who is sort of a good guy for some undisclosed reason. 

Naturally Stavros knows Jack isn't dead and kidnaps Jack's wife and child for a final showdown in the Roman Coliseum of all places. 

Things go boom. The end. 

You will try to make heads or tails of the story, but in all fairness just don't and take it for what it is: a highly stylized sequence of shots that are strung together using only the flimsiest of storylines and ideas. Granted, several shots are pretty sweet. The final face-off between Van Damme and Rourke in the arena is all kinds of wow and the fights often more resemble a sort of dance with some inventive use of the surroundings (check the fight in the maternity ward). 

But the bad unfortunately outweighs the good. The dialogue is horrendously inane, Rodman can't act for the life of him (and the basketball puns are absolutely cringe-inducing) and even a great actor like Paul Freeman is totally wasted. 

I hope the paycheck was worth it. 

Oh, and it turns out Coca Cola vending machines are not only impervious to explosions, but can protect people hiding behind them from an absolute inferno. Just FYI.

Even for a rabid fan of Van Damme, this is pretty awful. Just don't give it a go.