So, somehow I end up watching a double bill of “the muscles from Brussels” Jean-Claude Van Damme movies on a Saturday night, and more humiliating, they weren’t too bad!
Film one was “Double team” which matched Van Damme as a disgraced Government secret agent with wacky arms dealer Dennis Rodman. Bad guy was mercenary-with-a-vengeance Mickey Rourke, who is as ever, stylish yet brutish.
The plot involves Van Damme being “retired” by the government after failing a hit on Rourke, whose child is killed in the furor (a brilliant scene in a fairground where loads of people get killed and it makes no sense). Rourke is then taken to “The Colony” a place where failed agents are imprisoned in secret and used as an anti-terrorism think tank. The first person JC meets drives up in a golf cart - The Prisoner anyone?
During his stay is another excellent scene, the “getting fit” montage where JC uses the props available to him in his room to toughen up. He splays his legs to unlikely angles by wedging them aloft in the door frame (straining with the effort, he weirdly looked just like Tony Blair, but you’ll have to trust me on that one), repeatedly lifts a full bath of water, and holds his breath in the bath using a cigarette as a make-shift timer.
Ready for action, JC then makes a cunning escape which involves cutting off his thumb print to circumvent the security measures, and hitches a ride on the islands supply plane.
Back in the real world he hooks up with Rodman to seek out Rourke who now has captured JC’s delicate, attractive French wife, heavily pregnant.
Dennis Rodman’s obvious lack of acting skills doesn’t really detract in this film, as no-one can really act and the lines are so bad, even De Niro would have a hard time delivering them. My favourite line by JC about Rourke was “He is like a snake. You look him in the eye and he strikes you from behind”, er, and what kind of snake is that then?!
Rodman gets to wear loads of silly clothes and change his hair colour scene by scene. Which I liked.
The finale is set in a Spanish bull fighting ring and has the genius combination of JC unarmed, JC’s new baby in a wicker basket, a hungry Tiger on the loose, Rourke shirtless and mad, Rodman on a dirt bike and the arena rigged with mines. Fantastic!
Film two “Hard Target” looked equally as promising, and was directed by John Woo, but I only made it through half of it before falling asleep. It appeared more of an early 90’s affair. JC was a badass loner in New Orleans with a trenchcoat and a permed and gelled shiny mullet, the like we haven’t seen since Michael Bolton. A dated rich, yuppie girl (thick eyebrows, very old style Brook Shields) seeks out her long lost father only to find the Vietnam vet had been homeless and likely has been offed by some sinister group offering Vagrant Hunting Holidays to the bored and rich. Big bad in this is the always convincingly evil Lance Henrikson.
So hooray for Van Damme. I am a convert.