Movie Review #29: Double Team (1997)

 

No matter how hard they try they will never top the action films of the 1980s and 1990s. Today's action films just don't compare. There's probably many big reasons for this but I think the main one is probably the fact that the action heroes of today are not very charismatic (I'm not really including Superhero movies in this, I think they are now a whole new thing then your standard action films of the 1980s/1990s.) The only action movies that work these days are The Fast and the Furious because they know that one of the other secrets of 80s/90s action was to be as fucking ri-damn-diculious as you possibly could be.

Jean Claude Van Damme was probably my favorite 90s action star, along with Mr. Steven Seagal. I'm sure Twitter or the internet could come up with 5,000 reasons why I should hate them but I only loved their performances and stuff. Not like they were my best friends or anything. I just thought they were fun in movies. People need to kinda chill on thinking celebrities are their pals and that they know them. Anyway Jean Claude Van Damme started his career in 1979 at the age of 19 in some foreign film I've never seen. He worked his way up through Cannon Films (he had a cameo in damn Breakin 2!) and they gave him the lead role in Bloodsport. Then it through the roof for Van Damme for the next decade or so. He ended up in Direct to Video fare because Hollywood is a fickle place and if you don't make enough money you get thrown to the wolves. Dennis Rodman his co-star in this movie is uh a basketball player and best friend to that nutty fucker in North Korea. 

This movies plot is pretty all over the place honestly, it starts out with Van Damme finally getting to retire from being some kind of government spy or some shit.  He is then given a wife with a kid on the way. He gets brought back in for ONE FINAL JOB. The job is to take Mickey Rourke's character alive for all his juicy secrets. They end up accidently killing Mickey Rourke's 6 year old son so Rourke has a reason to be pissed but he also tries to blow up a newborn baby in a hospital, so he's not exactly a nice guy. Van Damme is considered dead and forced to live in a place called The Colony. This is a place for men too important to die and too dangerous to let leave. They work on discussing what people can do for terrorist bombings and shit. This isn't really important because who ever watched any of these movies for a plot. You watched them for the cool ass action scenes and this movie delivers those in spades.

I actually enjoyed Dennis Rodman and Van Damme in this movie. They worked well off each other and that's all I really ask for a buddy action movie from the 1990s. The best action scenes are Van Damme fighting a dude who wants to really stab Van Damme....using his foot. Yeah it's wild, but what's even wilder is the fact Van Damme HAS TO FIGHT A TIGER. A TIGER. If that doesn't make you want to see this movie then I don't know what else to say. I wish we had gotten a bit more Mickey Rourke because he's clearly having fun with his role as the bad guy.

FINAL VERDICT: The Razzies are bullshit for giving this movie the worst of the year award. Fuck you Razzies. You can eat my shit and ass. Any movie that can give us this image:

deserves every single Oscar from now until the end of cinema.