Written by Brian Thomas
Written by Brian Thomas
Sudden DeathVan Dammage on Thin IceThe Big Clock strikes again. In 1948, John Farrow directed a taut noir thriller in which crime writer Ray Milland is trapped in a skyscraper and kept running from cops and thugs alike, due to the machinations of master villain Charles Laughton. Ever since, critics have been praising it's claustrophobic atmosphere and nerve-stretching pace. In 1987, the story was reworked in No Way Out, with Kevin Costner's CIA agent trapped by Secretary of Defense Gene Hackman. One year later, Roderick Thorpe's thrilling novel Nothing Lasts Forever, about an ex-cop security consultant trapped in a skyscraper taken over by terrorists, was adapted for the screen in John McTiernan's Die Hard, a box office blockbuster that made a mega-star out of actor Bruce Willis. Die Hard owes it's success to the fact that it kept all the character, suspense, and counter-counter-plotting of the man-in-a-box formula, while pumping up the action and thrills beyond anything seen before. Die Hard spawned not only two successful sequels (to date), but a healthy crop of films that copied the formula, with various levels of success. In Under Siege and its sequel, Steven Seagal battles bad guys on a battle ship and a train, with plots and action equal to the Die Hard series. But Seagal's lack of personality tend to keep these films from appealing to anyone other than action fans, especially when compared to the warmth and charisma projected by Willis. Even Shannon Tweed got into the act in No Contest, when Andrew Clay and Roddy Piper try to kidnap an entire beauty contest! And so, it was inevitable that Jean-Claude "Me Too" Van Damme should get in on the Die Harder category eventually. Sudden Death picks up on all the main ingredients. The Box this time is a sports arena. No, not a football stadium like in Willis' The Last Boy Scout, but the fairly intriguing setting of the Pittsburgh hockey arena during the final game of the Stanley Cup. Van Damme has family trouble - he's divorced and frequently screws things up with his kids, and even showing up with tickets for the big match gets him in hot water. The bad guys this time are not really terrorists (as usual), but high-tech thieves out to extort a jillion dollars from the U.S. Government by holding the Vice President hostage. They're led by slick, cold-hearted bastard played by the underrated Powers Boothe (The Emerald Forest). Van Damme keeps in touch with a black lawman outside by radio. Etcetera. Peter Hyams directs the mayhem with all the frantic urgency of a television commercial, cutting back and forth at an annoyingly fast pace. Hyams is a good director, and should know better than to try to create false excitement this way (I suspect the editor is as much to blame). For the most part, the movie just runs through its paces, as if we haven't seen all this before. There are some unfortunate lapses in continuity, as well - a big fight is supposed to happen in a closed-down kitchen, but apparently the chefs all forgot to turn off the burners, and sliced potatoes are still bubbling away in the deep fryers. Things liven up a bit during some brilliantly bizarre moments, however, such as in the above fight scene when Van Damme gets involved in kung fu death match with a woman in a penguin costume. Or during the film's best scene, when he tries to escape the gang by disguising himself as a goalie. It's during moments like this that Sudden Death reveals its biggest surprise. While most of the film is routine action fare in a fresh setting, Van Damme - like his idol, Arnold Schwarzenegger - is growing into a fairly decent actor. If you don't believe me, just watch him here in the opening scene, as a fire fighter trapped in the basement of a burning house, trying (and failing) to save a a young girl's life. In recent interviews, the man known as "The Muscles from Brussels" has been talking about how things changed for him once he began to get better directors like Hyams and John Woo, people who know how to handle both action and actors. It shouldn't surprise us when those that have the discipline required to master something as difficult as body building, dance, or martial arts can learn to convey emotion in their face,voice and body, but it does. Jean-Claude is still a long way from an Oscar, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he got that far. Hey, in all the excitement, I forgot - who won the Stanley Cup, eh?
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