Sudden Death

So this is part two of my Van Damme/Seagal film watching. I think this is going to double as Die Hard on an X week/month where I'm going to review either a Die Hard Knock-off film or script. So here it is, Jean Claude Van Damme's Die Hard.

Sudden Death is Jean Claude Van Damme's answer to Steven Seagal's answer to Die hard. This time, it's Die Hard... in a Hockey Stadium!! During the Stanley Cup finals!!! And it's set in... not Toronto?!

Sorry but it lost me at Pittsburgh. If you're going to launch a terrorist attack targeting a politician in order to embezzle several millions of dollars out of the government, you'd do better holding Wayne Gretzky hostage in Canada and threaten to cut off his legs while you laugh maniacally and burn the Oiler's Jersey and piss over the ashes. Seriously, just target Canada and its love for hockey and you'll make out with a cool sum. That's mistake number one in the terrorists plan.

The second? Toronto's fan base is huge and the stadium is located in a large metropolitan area. Easily the place to target if you're going to be stupid and decide to hold a hockey stadium hostage for ransom. Even when the Toronto Maple Leafs suck (read: haven't won ONE Stanley Cup in over thirty years) the seats regularly sell out in the regular season and are high in demand on the rare occasion they make it to the playoffs, and add the fact that they are THE MOST lucrative and profitable hockey team in the entire NHL. Plus, most people hate the rabid fan base of the Maple Leafs, really you get two birds in one stone. Think about it, you hold the stadium hostage and ask every Maple Leafs fan in the stadium to pull out their wallets and give them all their money or else you'll shoot the team. The fans, desperate to not see their heroes die, would readily listen.

Call parliament and tell them you've got the stadium held hostage and ask for Ransom money, not that this is important now, you win either way, you already got the cash. Squeezing a little more out wouldn't hurt if you could.

Naturally, the country, and the government would be up in arms over what to do. Save a hockey team (Maple Leafs fans in parliament would vote for this of course) or let die one of the most hated team and fan bases in all of Canada? The civil war that's going to develop between Maple Leafs fans and non Maple Leafs fans in Canada over whether to save the team and stadium would serve as the most genius scapegoat that Power Boothe's bad guy could conjure up. He could easily escape without anyone noticing in the resulting frenzy, complete and utter anarchy. Whether or not you get the money from the government becomes a non-issue you leave a country fighting amongst themselves.

But since this is hollywood, and genius evil is never really explored unless they're doing a study on retarded genius, (Dr. Evil anyone) this won't happen.

Assuming you were stupid enough to hold a hockey stadium hostage in a country where the sports fan base is less than that of Baseball, or Football, or Golf, or Basketball, or Soccer, or Nascar, or Bowling, or Fly Fishing, or Painting, and you were stupid enough to target a mid size Hockey Market, where fans only came out with the name of Lemieux, and to a lesser extent today, Crosby, where on an off season and no star power, the fans would barely fill a third of the stadium, and assuming that the authorities would actually take your threats towards killing the Vice president seriously (remember, he's only the co-commander in chief, he's only good for sound bites and the occasional accidentally being stupid by saying the stupid thing, like Biden, or doing the retarded thing like shooting someone in the face during a duck hunt like Cheney), wait stop, you know what? By this time, it's a fucking miracle how you were able to organize your own closet let alone such an intricately ridiculous plan. I mean really? Come the fuck on...

Amazingly due to Hollywood magic, the plan goes off without a hitch. I guess Hollywood magic only works on things that are only "So stupid it passes through the line of retardation and crosses through to the genius level that it has to work".

Assuming all those things that were working against you did not in fact, work against you, you still had to go through one more obstacle: Jean Claude Van Damme.

In case you haven't figured out the plot, Sudden Death is about Jean Claude Van Damme, or rather his character, Darren McCord trapped in a hockey stadium during the Stanley Cup finals with the Pittsburgh Penguins against the Chicago Blackhawks. Powers Boothe plays a bad guy trying to extort the government out of millions, possibly billions of dollars.

The film begins in a burning house with Darren McCord trapped under some burning rubble. Evidently, it's perfectly acceptable for a fireman to go solo into a burning building to do some fire fighting. The building starts to crumble and Van Damme is trapped and has a little girl under his arms. He shouts for some back-up but before anyone comes, part of the basement collapses. Van Damme shields the little girl with his body but it's no use.

Apparently, Jean Claude Van Damme can pass through walls and falling pieces of building because he survives but the little girl he protects from under neath him doesn't. Van Damme is a superman of sorts, and the brilliant scene gives us all we need to know about his character, nothing can fucking kill him.

Cut to the present day where we learn that Van Damme no longer wears the firemen's uniform and instead works as a firemarshall for the civic stadium or for Penguin fans, The Mellon Arena. Ever since the incident, Van Damme hasn't been able to do proper firefighting work. Presumably this establishes a subplot of sorts that Van Damme's character has to go through and confront his fears later in the movie.

So, Van Damme, or McCord, decides to bring his kids to the Stanly Cup finals game but his ex-wife doesn't like it. She says something along the lines of "you can't keep doing this" as ex-wives are prone to do in movies where the protagonist is separated from his significant other and wants to see his kids. But I digress. Obviously, he gets to bring his kids because there wouldn't be an action movie without some form of child endangerment.

Now here's where Van Damme and Seagal diverge in terms of action ass kicking. Seagal is a deadly hand to hand combatant. If he kills, it's not with a gun, it's with his bare hands. Van Damme is a deadly gymnast. He kicks and twirls, and literally kicks your ass to death, and he finishes with a flourish that highlights his acrobatic skills.

If you thought Seagal's film were ridiculous, I think Van Damme's bring ridiculous to a whole new level. He fights a woman in penguin suit, let that seep in for a moment,

"Apparently I'm deadly"

Ok, and he kills said assailant with a washing machine, kills some dude with a bad mullet by frying his hands and some other shit, disarms bombs, has a vast amount of knowledge regarding architecture, makes a flamethrower out of a squirt gun and a bit of liquid from a lighter, Magyveres a bomb, and knows how to send a game into Sudden Death Overtime by making a key save for the Penguins. Yes, you heard that right, Jean Claude Van Damme not only saves the day, but he saves a goal... in full goalie uniform.

Not impressed? Look at it this way. In professional hockey, we have skaters going at a top speed of over 20 miles an hour, easily. Now, most hockey players aren't really skinny guys, save for the exception of Wayne Gretzky, and most weigh in around 180 - 200 lbs. and never mind the fact that most stand at an average of 6 ft tall. Add in the fact that they shoot a heavy piece of plastic otherwise known as a hockey puck which, if memory serves correctly weighs somewhere between half a pound to two pounds (I may be exaggerating), and that the puck travels at an average of 90 miles an hour when shot, we're looking at a fucking miracle that an amateur goalie such as Jean Claude Van Damme could even have a snail's chance of saving the puck. But then again, we got the whole superman thing with the fire, so I guess anything is possible.

Oh, the movie even has it's own Die Hard Knock off moment when Jean Claude Van Damme jumps off the Mellon, I mean, Civic Centre and does some stunt with a rope.

And hey, looky what we have here, it's Luc Robitaille of the Pittsburgh Penguins making a guest appearance.

Wait, what about that backstory about Van Damme's inability to firefight and all that shit that supposedly scarred him for life? Yeah, has nothing to do with the plot. Just unnecessary backstory, which makes you wonder how much money they spent to film a burning house only to have it mean nothing to the overall plot. Whatever, I think it made it's money back overseas or something.

So how is the film? Well as action films go, it ain't bad. It's certainly more tense than Under Siege due to the aforementioned child endangerment thing, cause you know, if you want an audience to care about your character's goals, it would never hurt to put kids in the line of fire. But this is countered by the fucking ridiculous plot to overtake a hockey stadium. Powers Boothe makes a pretty good bad guy, he just chews the scenery in every second he's in the film, and even though Van Damme doesn't kick as much ass as Seagal, he's a much more sympathetic action hero because he cares about rescuing his kids, or at least he doesn't want to fuck up what little family he already has and die a lonely bitter man. I don't know, either one works really.

And the last act certainly takes the action notch up to 11. Van Damme scales the top of the Mellon Arena and drops down to the arena where he swings on the big lights, throws his magyvered bomb and drops into the executive box where the Vice President is being held. He kills like 5 bad guys doing this and manages to rescue his daughter. Actually, this last act runs around in a huge circle because we somehow wind up back on top of the arena where Jean Claude Van Damme has to rescue his daughter (again) while Power Boothe tries to escape via helicopter but not without trying to Kill Van Damme's daughter. Of course, bad guys don't win in these movies so I think I'm not spoiling anything when I say he dies. I think exploding/crashing helicopters are a staple in Die Hard knock offs, or perhaps it's really a pissing contest between Van Damme and Seagal over who does the most damage to helicopters in their own Die Hard knock off movies.

It's ridiculous fun though and probably because Jean Claude Van Damme has kids he has to save, as well as an ass kicking last act, puts this film slightly above Under Siege. I enjoyed it.

7.1/10

Plus Darren McCord is a Canadian so extra props there...

You know, I'm beginning to think this whole pissing contest thing between Seagal and Van Damme isn't made up.