Second in Command (2006)

Disclaimer: If you are a viewer that mainly prefers art-house-type movies, then you might as well ignore this review. In addition, if you're not able to take an underrated Van Damme realistic acting performance, including a realistic war drama, ignore this review, as well. We'll both be better off.Second in Command (2006) in my opinion is a really good war drama, that is realistic in my opinion. I like this movie a lot, It is not my favorite Van Damme movie, bit I think it is pretty good. I know a lot of folks will disagree with me and put my review down, but seriously I like it. I did not thought it was bad. Some haters are saying: "Tom Hanks or a Brad Pitt would do a better job, leading a group of soldiers, but not JCVD!" Wrong! You guys are wrong! Van Damme can act and he completely surprised me by his acting skills. After just finishing watching this movie, I thought it was a realistic war drama. I think the movie is good, it has a mayor problems and mistakes, but which movie doesn't? I have enjoy it.This movie in my opinion is miles way better than Street Fighter (1994)! Remember Street Fighter? Van Damme played Colonel Guile who lead his soldiers in to a battle against Bison (Raul Julia) and his men. That movie sucked major ass! Colonel Guile sucked leading his soldiers in to a fight! That movie sucks, I hate Street Fighter movie! I don't care what anyone says, Second in Command kicks Street Fighter's ass to the ground! Anyway this one, had some good action, pretty cool to see Van Damme in this type of role, in a political action war movie. I haven't watched a realistic war drama since I saw and watched Black Hawk Down (2001). The siege in the American Embassy was awesome. Velibor Topic as Anton Tavarov the leader of the militia group did a fantastic job. You can even hear him talking Serbian language when he was cussing out on Van Damme. The final fight scene between those two was really good. I am glad Van Damme could use some of his martial arts skills, that I like. Jean-Claude Van Damme can play a soldier and in my opinion he played a Navy Seal Commander more convincing than Steven Seagal ever did in Under Siege (1992)! I still think Under Siege is a classic action movie from the 90's but Van Damme could play more convincing a Navy Seal soldier than Seagal did. Seagal acted more as a cook and martial artist that was it. Seagal eat your heart out, because Van Damme is much more better actor than you are, even his direct to video movies are much better than yours. In the film, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays an official who's just been appointed as "Second in Command" to the U.S. Ambassador at an American Embassy in a small, turbulent Eastern European nation. When local insurgents attempt a coup d'etat, the nation's President takes refuge inside the embassy. The embassy is then besieged by the well-armed insurgents. The U.S. Ambassador is killed in the ensuing action, and now it's up to Van Damme and the embassy's small detachment of U.S. Marines to defend off the attackers.What I like about this movie is there were a lot of army and marines used for this movie. It is a siege movie and it goes with "Second in Command" delivers enough on the action quotient to make it a worthwhile effort. It's no "The Nest", but then again, few movies can match that one's raw and relentless intensity. And despite the fact that the insurgents are pressed for time, having to take the Embassy and kill the President before two impending arrivals — one by the President's astray military and the other by U.S. Marine reinforcements — the film does fail to really generate mounting pressure. The time the film allots itself for the siege is 4 hours, but it feels more like 4 days. Of course it doesn't help that the country's military is apparently composed of one tank, two armored transport vehicles, and a couple of troop transport trucks. I like that the movie shows a marine ship a USS Challenger on Adriatic Sea. I like that the movie shows the marines in a helicopter who are flying off in Sbelnska, Croatia, since I live near Croatia, I am from Slovenia tough. I like the shout outs and I like Van Damme a lot. Specially I like the ending a lot when he is staying in the Embassy in Moldavia with Michelle Whitman United World News his girlfriend. I like the characters and the story in this movie. So sorry if you disagree with me and Second in Command is not your movie that's fine. I am giving this movie a solid 8, it is a good movie for me. Probably I am the only one that likes this movie. Second in Command is a 2006 American action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and directed by Simon Fellows. The film was released on direct-to-DVD in the United States on May 2, 2006.8/10 Grade: B- Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Clubdeal Castel Film Romania MPCA Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Julie Cox, William Tapley, Alan McKenna, Velibor Topic, Razaaq Adoti Director: Simon Fellows Producers: RBrad Krevoy, Donald Kushner, Pierre Spengler Screenplay: Jonathan Bowers, David Corley, Jayson Rothwell Story by: Milt Bearden, Jonathan Bowers, David Corley Rated: R Running Time: 1 Hr. 32 Mins. Budget: $12.000.000 Box Office: $10,400,000

So farooqnk from Pakistan, yes a real capital of film going critique that place, has said: "After Replicant this was the second best JCVD direct to DVD!" Well, that doesn't say much for the rest. He also said: "Yeah believe me this movie will rock you from the start to the end point." No, really, he said that. I'm not making this up. Honest! :) Followed by: "You will be stucked to your seat and your breath will hang out there with jcvd." Er, what? OK, I get it. But really, this was so bad. People in the street aiming RPGs at the embassy and being totally ignored by the people inside, apart from one soldier who says - guess what: "They've got RPGs".So why not shoot the bloke BEFORE he fires it? No, no. You don't want to do that! Because then you wouldn't be able to film some lovely explosions and things going bang! So after the explosions and the things going bang, our hero says: "Protect the windows!". And then these enormous great shutters come down to - you guessed it - protect the windows.So the question that springs to mind is: Why on God's green earth didn't they "protect the windows" BEFORE the idiot fired the RPG?you know, like they would've done in the real world.Too ridiculous.Waste of film. Waste of time.

As such an admirer of Jean-Claude Van Damme, watching him make stuff like this is really disheartening to be honest with you all. I grew up with his movies, and whilst not all of them were great, he has provided me with many hours of entertainment with classics such as Bloodsport, Universal Soldier, and Time Cop. Even recently he has really upped his game with some DTV gems like Until Death, Wake Of Death, Replicant, Assassination Games, and In Hell. But this feels like something that Steven Seagal rejected. It doesn't have much action to speak of, and when it does happen, we get a lot of frustrating shaky camera work that really hampers what little it has going for it. It doesn't help that I can't stand politics. Anything to do with it, I tend to lose interest in quickly. There are a few exceptions to this rule where I end up enjoying them, but this was bloody terrible. Jean-Claude Van Damme isn't really trying all that much here. He phones it in, but he can't overcome the weak script or poor pacing issues. I realize he has toned down his histrionics over the last few years, but this movie really lets him down. The rest of the cast do what they have to do, but none of them really stand out all that muchFinal Thoughts: He's made some really good DTV gems since this awful film, but this is without a doubt one of the worst movies he has ever done. It's up there with Double Team, Black Eagle, and Derailed. Even die hard JCVD fans (I consider myself one of them!) will be disappointed by this. The lack of interest really sinks this one3/10

The title of this movie at once reminds me of those instantly forgettable direct-to-video movies that seem to come out by the hundreds, but soon you realize that it is the perfect title for this story. The story takes place in a country called Moldavia, where there is much internal strife over an alleged order that the president gave, which led to a huge amount of innocent deaths. An insurgency rises, demanding that the president be tried in their custody, which presumably would consist of not much more than a brief mention of his crimes followed by torture and execution. That's just an assumption, of course. Van Damme plays Commander Sam Keenan, a Navy Seal sent in to handle the situation, which grows increasingly desperate and dire. One of the best things about the film is how realistically it presents the mass protests, which are so good that I imagine they must have used stock footage of real protests. Either way, they are seamlessly integrated into the film. Unfortunately, the one street on which the majority of the exterior scenes are filmed looks strikingly like a soundstage, but no matter. The gunfights, another easily botched element, are quite well done here. There is an authority battle as the clearly competent Keenan struggles to convince the commanders around him of a course of action that might save everyone but may also be more dangerous, while others in the top echelon immediately decide upon the tactic that will certainly save some lives but also certainly doom others. Keenan plays a pretty generic hero in this way, going the more dangerous route to save more lives, but it is undeniable that this is Van Damme at his highest class. He's not given a lot of meaningful stuff to do (he gets to say cool lines like "Get the people to the TLU and the president to the ACR. Go!"), but this is one of his best performances.His primary assignment is to hold off the impending insurgent force while both the American military and the Croatian army close in, conveniently with exactly the same ETA. You know something big is going to happen soon. Sadly, the CGI air support is pretty dismal, but it serves its purpose. The leader of the insurgency is also a little too much of a movie villain, although I like the final confrontation between him and Keenan (which would be a spoiler, but did you really think that wouldn't happen?), in which Keenan does something that reveals a deep flaw in his character. It's something that some people in the military might like to do to the bad guys in real life, but not the kind of thing you expect from a benevolent movie hero. And by the way, I love how, even with the sheer magnitude of firepower in the movie, it all comes down to a hand-to-hand knife fight.The movie ends with a sufficiently cheesy scene, although it stands out as a pretty glaring omission that the true guilt or innocence of the president, who allegedly caused so many deaths, was never proved one way or the other. I have been learning a lot about Mao Tse- tung lately, which has led to a gigantic mistrust of certain governments and powerful individuals. I guess we have to assume that he didn't commit the crime of which he was accused. Maybe they were banking on the "Insurgents" vs. the "President," so people would automatically assume who were the bad guys and who was the good guy. Too bad it's not that clear cut in real life