Last night I saw Double Team, the 1997 action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman and Mickey Rourke, directed by Tsui Hark. I had a great time with it, and if anything in that first sentence piqued your interest I recommend giving the movie a shot. Despite the inarguable deficiency in many of the film’s performances, there remains a particular greatness to it.
I don’t want to review Double Team. I’d much rather talk about something fabulous in its execution, something all too often unappreciated by storyteller and storylistener alike: the art of being unpredictable.
There are few sensations I enjoy more than getting involved in a story and having absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next. And yet most Hollywood movies are ferociously resistant to this. Even specialized nerd fare like Hellboy II: The Golden Army is ruined by that hackneyed impulse to spoil a climax in the first few minutes by way of allegory.
Being predictable works sometimes. Like in Fist of the North Star. There’s no such thing as a Fist of the North Star spoiler. Let’s be honest, just about every character introduced is going to die, and Kenshiro’s mythic quest will continue, like a Greek tragedy of sorts. It has a quality I’ve rarely encountered with modern stuff. I liken the experience to reading Bible stories as a child: there’s a sense of wonder and reverence at the intense morbidity, while the story mechanics themselves are fairy-tale simplistic and predictable. Yes, I just compared Fist of the North Star to the Bible. Shut up. I like it more.
But that’s the exception to the rule. Predictability ruins most everything. For example, every film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They’re average at best, satisfying the box office and critics alike with the bare minimum amount of charisma required, when their every flaw would be better augmented by throwing us a curve ball or two. Like having a boss fight with a shredded Mickey Rourke in a Coliseum lined with tripmines. And a tiger.
I liked this movie, if you can't tell.
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Saw this film when it hit video, way back when.
Isn’t there a scene that tries to draw intense suspense from the fact that Jean Claude Van Damme’s cheap knockoff sneakers are about to lose their structural integrity? Like with slo-mo close-ups of them dramatically breaking down and crumbling?
If that happens in this film, then it qualifies as one of the few times I’ve been reduced to gaping at my TV screen in abject astonishment. Hats off to the writer who dreamed up that idea.
If I’m wrong and it isn’t in the movie–uh, hey sorry about the psycho-flashback conflation.
Whoops.
Nope. I was thinking (if you can call it that) about the following year’s JCVD movie, Knockoff.
Never mind.
I’ve never seen KNOCK OFF. Not intentionally, I just don’t know much about Jean-Claude Van Damme other than his greatest hits. But now you have me interested because it has the same director as DOUBLE TEAM. But it also has Rob Schneider….
I think I have to see it anyway. Thanks for bringing it up!