WATCH NOW
“Double Team” stands out as one of the most outlandish action movies ever produced, and I do not mean this in a negative way. It will give you some idea of this movie’s strangeness if I tell you that Dennis Rodman does not play the character that is the oddest.
Oh, he’s strange alright. But think about what Mickey Rourke’s villain does: He is burning with the thirst for revenge against Jean-Claude Van Damme, so he captures Van Damme’s infant son and places the baby in the middle of the Roman Coliseum fortified with landmines and a prowling tiger. He shouts, “If you live you will know your son, if not I will raise him as my own.” As Van Damme, Jack-Paul Quinn, is a counterterrorist operative he is recruited for one last job. While scribbling madly in the dark, I managed to document the most important points of his account. There is a conflict between the fourth and sixth sentences, “You’re a hunter, Jack. You miss the game. Stavros is bad, we want him alive. Tell me do you like hunting? We have a Delta team set and prepared for you in Antwerp.”
Accept it, Jack–you are unable to retire until he passes away” Van Damme encounters Yaz (Rodman) at an all encompassing Bordeaux in Antwerp, and Rodman gives Van Damme weapons that are so scary, that he himself refers to Rodman as ‘Santa.’ Rodman: “I don’t have reindeer, but I surely have the finest elves in the game.” Stavros (Rourke) also is in Antwerpen and takes his son to a theme park, where the child meets his demise in a shooting.
The kid dies in the crossfire. Stavros manages to escape, and as retribution, Van Damme is sentenced to the Colony, an area ruled by a ‘Government think tank’ for people deemed to be ‘too dangerous to set loose or too valuable to kill.’ It is clear that Van Damme wishes to rejoin his pregnant wife, so he removes his thumb to trick a security system. His escape is facilitated by aerial stunts, and so all of my stunt work and special effects. The direction is by Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark, renowned for “A Chinese Ghost Story” films.
The path goes to Rome Now Van Damme is with Rodman. They jump out of a plane without parachutes and land in a massive basketball, though I don’t quite understand how it inflates around them. While this is going on, Stavros is busy capturing Van Dammes’s wife, and he sets a trap for Van Damme with a bomb disguised as a baby. The movie is moving so fast at this point that the poor wife has her massive childbirth scene reduced to a quick appearance (as a battle rages around her, someone shouts, “Push! Push!”) Rodman thinks “I have to leave the bench. The best defence is a good offence.” Van Damme is hopelessly searching for his wife. To the rescue comes Rodman. He just happens to get along with some monks whose subterranean database knows where missing people are. This results in a trip through the catacombs and a scene where Rodman aiming for a detonator, misses, throws a human skull at it, and says, “Oops, air ball!” After that comes the tiger and the baby.
The movie is action-packed and contains minimal dialogue in order to make dubbing easier. Its structure is simple Set a scene, do some action set pieces, do stunts, and then back to another setup. Van Damme did much better in his earlier films like “Timecop” and “Sudden Death” because he had more range. Here, he is a slave to a plot that is too stuffed with everything.
And Dennis Rodman? He excelled in portraying a character who, in every way, is Dennis Rodman. He seems to know his way around a screen effortlessly. He is assured, and during the action sequences, he performs his variation of the spirited hop-skip-and-jump that he oftentimes showcases on the basketball court. He’s looking like he’s enjoying himself which is important for the movie actor that he is. His agent should have advised him that he’s much better off playing the villain than the best friend. The best friend role is better than the sidekick, but still not as great as playing the hero.
To watch more movies like Double Team (1997) visit 123Movies.
Also Watch for more movies like:
