Sudden Death (1995)

Sudden Death (1995): Dir: Peter Hyams / Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Booth, Raymond J. Barry, Ross Malinger, Whittni Wright: Title describes its box office results. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a firefighter who quit his job but unfortunately not the film industry. He emerges as a security guard at a stadium and takes his two children to a hockey game attended by the President but Powers Booth holds the V.I.P. group hostage and demands money or bombs will go off at the end of the game. Perhaps he should have demanded a higher salary for allowing himself to be part of this crap fest. Before long Van Damme's daughter ends up in the isolation booth and many bone breaking battles follow. Production succeeds where story fails. Director Peter Hyams previously made Time Cop with Van Damme and together they prove that two heads are not necessarily better than one. Booth is laughable as this villain whose ass will get kicked. It is just that so many others are ahead of him in the wait line. Raymond J. Barry is wasted as the President. Ross Malinger plays Van Damme's son who stays put when told. Perhaps had he left then he would have avoided any further involvement in one of the year's worst films. Whittni Wright plays Van Damme's daughter who laughably yet tearfully informs Booth that her dad will hand his ass to him. Pointless wretch that should be met with sudden death. Score: 1 / 10

*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS"Sudden death" is another one of those "Die hard" clones . Some of them were good ,some were bad. Unfortunately this one falls into the second category. I don't mind the lack of originality. However the plot is so ludicrous it was almost doomed to fail even as a brainless action movie. According to writer Randy Feldman, he wrote the first draft of the screenplay for the movie as a comedy / action movie parody. The movie was later rewritten as a serious action movie. That fact itself should be a warning for the viewer… The only scene that remained in the finished film was the scene with the penguin mascot (one of the most laughable scenes I have ever seen). A disgraced former fireman takes on a group of terrorists holding the Vice President and others hostage during the seventh game of the NHL Stanley Cup finals. The screenplay is so stupid that kills any possible tension. • Why the filmmakers decided to make the hostage the Vice President of USA ? Why not have the terrorist attack the President of USA ? • Why the terrorists would choose a Stanley Cup final to carry out their operation ? • Furthermore , If you were planning an elaborate almost military criminal operation, why choose a Game 7 ? Why not Game 5 or 6 ? • Vice President is in attendance and the security is tight. Yet JCVD seems to go where he wants with no visible ID. He even wanders around the arena defusing bombs, no-one stops him aside from the occasional bad guy who tries to kill him. • It also seems that the bad guys had no problems planting bombs all over the arena and nobody from the security noticed them. • Access to the elevator is controlled by the Head Chef... Furthermore the security guys are too dumb to check the newcomers for hidden guns or bombs. Secret service agents have rarely been so incompetent. • The story at the beginning with the little girl dying in JCVD arms had NOTHING to do with the rest of the movie. It would make sense if JCVD for example was afraid of fire or failure and had to fight his fear at some point of movie (think "Cliffhanger" and the opening scene). • I can somewhat buy the fact that an ex-fireman knows something about explosives , but it doesn't explain how does he knows martial arts so good. If he was a cop that would make sense , but an ex-fireman ? • Why the audience inside the hockey stadium is oblivious to the situation despite many explosions around them ? • Why the bad guy in mascot costume didn't simply kill JCVD daughter ? Why he brought it out to Foss ? He could kill her and hide the body somewhere , it's a big stadion overall. • The girls in women's bathroom didn't noticed the death body ? • Why despite many explosions outside the stadium there are NO journalists , media , TV reporters etc etc ? Nobody saw them or nobody thinks there interesting ? • Who exactly Foss is ? It's never really explained. • Why didn't the black FBI agent (the traitor) simply killed JCVD instead of playing games with him ? • The twist with Foss waiting for the end of extra time (Sudden death) to kill all the people in the stadium is just laughable. • I have never seen people move in such an orderly and polite fashion where they are allegedly in fear for their lives.Some unbelievable moments : Nobody in a hockey mascot costume can see too much or move too fast, so they definitely can't fight. The fact that JCVD almost loses the fight is pure comedy gold . Also, a helicopter's lift is always in a direction nearly parallel to the rotor axis, so it cannot come close to maintaining a position where its nose is straight up. In such a position it would move violently sideways (the rotor leading) and fall rapidly. Oh , JCVD ends up on the ice as the goalie at one point, making a key save !The little kids are terribly annoying. The acting is substandard . Powers Booth overacts his terribly underwritten role. The characters are poorly written and paper-thin.Nobody is really interesting or likable. The action isn't completely unimaginative , yet the stupidity of plot simply destroys any excitement. Not too much of karate here , some might find it disappointing. With stupid plot , lack of martial art sequences and interesting villains this movie doesn't have much to offer. I have to admit that "SD" has decent budget , special effects and is nicely directed. Some of the jokes and dialogues are actually very funny. It doesn't change the fact that I recommend it only to die-hard fans of JCVD and hockey. I give it 3/10.

When I was in my teenage years, growing up in the nineties I loved a good action flick with Jean Claude Van Damme. He wasn't my favourite hero but he was always good for action. I thought I remembered Sudden Death being one of my favourites so I was anxious to watch it again. I'm glad I did because man was it bad. I was completely entertained but now that I've seen so many more movies and become something of a connoisseur I can see all the ridiculously huge plot holes with a movie like this. I mean any good action film requires you to suspend some belief but I'm talking ridiculous gaping plot holes that are just ignored. How is that terrorists completely overtake a stadium during the biggest sporting event ever, blow up cars outside the stadium, have massive gunfights and perform other acts of terrorism without anyone inside the stadium ever having any idea? Its ludicrous. This is only one example but its a major one. The acting for the most part is wooden and even Van Damme who at least has a strong chemistry on screen just doesn't really come alive in this one. Still with those downsides the film is still fun and entertaining and still has some worthy action scenes.Many will poke fun at Jean-Claude Van Damme for his acting abilities but he was a nineties king for a brief moment. He was a martial arts/action superstar and this seems almost primed for him. The unfortunate part is they misuse him. He hardly does any martial arts and just seems so out of place. His character has no development and doesn't really get the chance to be as charismatic as other heroes in similar films. Powers Boothe actually steals the show in a lot of ways. He is a fantastic lead villain right up there with a great Die Hard villain. Boothe has the look and the delivery and has a cold blooded character not to be messed with. The final show down is epic enough and it is sort of a cool concept but when Boothe's villain finally meets his end it is rather campy but suits the film. Raymond J. Barry also is quite good but sadly underused as the Vice-President of The United States. Whittni Wright and Ross Malinger deserve honourable mention as they both do a good job as Van Damme's children who find themselves in danger. Dorian Harewood is decent as Hallmark but I'm not sure his entire purpose in the film and despite getting one of the cooler death scenes his character feels awkward in the grand scheme of things.Certainly director Peter Hyams is no stranger to a good action film. He worked with Van Damme previously on Timecop and has done a handful of decent to really good action flicks but his best work is usually in sci-fi. This is not his best work. Essentially this is another Die Hard type rip off but its lacking the heart and the smart script that is necessary to make it really something. As the rumour goes this film was originally written as an action/martial arts spoof film and ultimately I think that is what it ended up being. For all the bad I've said you can't deny its nineties classic status. Its a terrific concept to have the lone hero suddenly have to protect his children, the Vice President and thousands of hockey fans from an insane terrorist at Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals IN Sudden Death Overtime. I don't understand why they made him a fireman as opposed to a police officer which would have made far more sense and helped with some of the glaring plot holes. So basically if you can really let go of logic and sense and just sit back and enjoy a silly action flick then you'll be entertained and find this amusing. A great piece of film making it isn't but I suppose that isn't its goal. 6/10

Back in his heyday, martial arts sensation Jean Claude Van Damme was fighting titans like Chong Li (Bolo Yeung) and Attila. But in this movie, JCVD (playing Darren McCord) is reduced to fighting a hockey team's mascot (which looks like a cross between a hen and a penguin) -- and worst of all he comes very close to losing. And that fight scene really sums up this entire movie. Jean Claude Van Damme was in his element when he was playing unapologetically macho guys in movies that were so cheesy, so laid back, and so consciously silly that they were funny and fun to watch. In addition, some of Van Damme's martial arts fight scenes in those laid back, silly films were brilliant in terms of their execution. But in director Peter Hyams' "Sudden Death," all of that cheesy, laid back, silliness that made the JCVD movies so entertaining was lost in a barrage of loud and remarkably boring shoot em ups, explosions, and stunts. Plus the martial arts fights in this movie are few and far between and nothing compared to the wonderful martial arts sequences in JCVD films like "Bloodsport," "Kickboxer," and even (shockingly enough) "Black Eagle."As for the plot, I will not go into all the details about why this movie is awful because there is simply not enough room in this review for that. Suffice it to say, there are two main problems. To begin with, the lead villain (who is so boring that I honestly forgot his name) explains right in the beginning that he will shoot people if $500 million of U.S. government money is not delivered into his bank account by the end of a (get this) period in a hockey game. Hockey, for those who do not follow the sport, has three periods, which leads one to conclude that the villain wants $1.5 billion in all. This scene, where the lead villain explains his plan, sucks out most of this film's excitement and suspense because predictably enough when the first and second periods of the hockey game end, people die violent deaths in scenes that are identical to each other. If that is not bad enough, this film tacks on a ridiculous plot twist at the end of the third period. Apparently the hockey teams are drawn 4-4 and go into sudden death, which inexplicably influences the lead villain to postpone his original plan to kill everyone in the hockey stadium (which he says he will do if all the money is not delivered by the end of the third period) to the end of "sudden death," giving Van Damme just enough time to save the dumb hockey fans. Maybe I could have excused this flawed plot, if the villains were given interesting things to say and do. But the villains in "Sudden Death" are very dull fellows and not frightening at all. As a result, we are not concerned about their potential victims and we are not entertained by the villains. So my advice is to have fun reading this review, have a few laughs, and be glad that you missed this film.