Double Team (1997)

Double Team (1997)
aka The Colony

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman, Mickey Rourke, Paul Freeman, Natacha Lindinger, Valeria Cavalli
Director: Tsui Hark
Action Directors: Charlie Picerni, Sammo Hung, Xiong Xin-Xin, Sam Wong

A year after Maximum Risk did mediocre business Stateside, Van Damme joined forces with another Hong Kong filmmaker, Tsui Hark. Tsui Hark needs no introduction, having produced and directed some of the most well-loved cult flicks in Hong Kong. Movies like Zu: Warriors from Magic Mountain; Peking Opera Blues; and Once Upon a Time in China have become important hallmarks in Hong Kong cinema. The question stands: would Tsui Hark be able to help Van Damme get back on the scene and get himself an American audience?

The film opens with anti-terrorist hotshot Jack Quinn (Van Damme) on a mission to retrieve stolen plutonium. Right off the bat, we're treated a large scale chase scene as the military forces of whatever country he's in are out to get the goods back. However, after driving the truck containing the plutonium through a train (!), Jack makes it to the border and retires from "the game" (the main characters of the film have a thing with referring to everything as a game. Maybe they really talk like this in the CIA. But then, what I do I know?).

Some years later, Jack is retired and happily married in France (or Italy) where his artist wife, Kathryn (French actress Natacha Lindinger), is pregnant. Their marital bliss is interrupted by Jack's old superior, who convinces Jack to get back in the game for one last mission: catch his nemesis, Stavros (Rourke). Jack accepts the mission and we learn that Stavros is actually quite pleased with the idea, demonstrating his appreciation to Quinn's superior by blowing him up with a plastic explosive.

Quinn goes to Antwerp (if the city really is like how it's portrayed in the film, I admit that I'd never want to go there) to carry out the mission. While there, he hooks up with an arms dealer named Yaz (Rodman, who later star in this film’s pseudo-sequel, Simon Sez) to get some specialized equipment. Quinn’s Delta Team meet at an amusement park with a trap set for Stavros. However, Quinn hesitates before giving his sniper the order to fire. A gunfight breaks out and the Special Forces team is killed. Quinn and Stavros take their fight into a hospital. However, Stavros manages to escape and leaves Quinn for dead.

Quinn awakes to find himself in The Colony. The Colony is a secret island where defunct secret agents are placed in order to take advantage of their skills without letting them loose on the streets. They form a giant think-tank for solving terrorist attacks around the world. After several months, Quinn learns that Stavros has his wife, and starts formulating an escape plan.

After a workout/recovery montage (à la Hard to Kill), Quinn puts his plan in action, which involves a scapel, an eraser, underwater lasers, an airplane, and a vengeful ex-rival (maybe I'm making it sound more dramatic than it really is). Quinn escapes and somehow (it's not explained) makes back to Antwerp, where he meets up again with Yaz.

Reluctantly, Yaz allows Quinn to buy some high-powered weaponry in exchange for some CIA bank codes (which turn out to be fakes). Quinn goes back to his house in search of his wife, but finds the place populated by gun-toting terrorists instead. He discovers that his wife is now in Rome where she's due to go into labor in a couple of days.

Quinn and Yaz high-tail it to Rome where, with the help of the Colony and some computer-literate Catholic monks, they set out to put an end to Stavros and save his family. The resultant conflicts build up to a climax at the Colliseum whose participants include Stavros, Quinn, Yaz, a tiger, some soda machines, and a lot of well-placed land mines!*

So it's your standard action/terrorist/revenge flick with some not-so-standard aspects to it. The whole Colony bit was a neat twist, although had they stuck with the name The Colony, it would have disappointed viewers since it only took up the middle portion of the film. The movie itself is fast-paced and never slows down, it moves briskly from set-piece to set-piece. On the whole, the movie isn't to be taken seriously, so keep that in mind when you get to the grand finale. I dare you…I DOUBLE DARE YOU…to find a movie with a conclusion as goofy as three men and a baby (heh) standing behind a vending machine to survive a GINORMOUS EXPLOSION.

I refuse to get into a discussion about the acting capabilities of Van Damme. I think it is a pointless argument. Either you accept and enjoy his style, or you do not. For whatever his flaws are, he is better than Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal; at least he tries to show emotion. Van Damme is his usual self in this movie. Dennis Rodman, for his first movie, doesn't fare as well. He's stuck with a script that has him spouting horrible, cringeworthy basketball references. Considering he's not that good of an actor, any scene where he has to open his mouth is rathr painful. Mickey Rourke plays a good terrorist (he has the build for it and doesn't overact) and trained in the martial arts in preparation for his role. Paul Freeman, who plays, Goldsmythe, a prominent member of the Colony, also turns in a likable performance (it's hard to believe that the same guy played Ivan Ooze in the Power Rangers movie).

I find it important to note that this is one of the action movies that demonstrated (to some extent) the talent possessed by Chinese filmmakers before The Matrix made slow-motion gun-play and CGI fu the mainstream norm. The action direction is headed by Hollywood veteran Charlie Picerni, with assistance rendered by Sammo Hung and Xiong Xin-Xin. Sammo had worked with Hark that same year on Once Upon a Time in China andAmerica. Xiong Xin-Xin, who has a brief role as a terrorist, is known best for his roles as "Clubfoot" in the Once Upon a Time in China series. Xiong also played the main villain in Tsui Hark’s The Blade, and did the action direction for Tsui’s Time and Tide and Seven Swords. I’m going to assume that Xiong Xin-Xin directed his fight with Van Damme inside the hotel room, which involved switchblade knives being held between Xiong’s toes, machine guns hidden in suitcases, and high-tension steel garrotes.

On the whole, the action sequences are pretty good and see Van Damme in good shape. Sadly, the martial arts is kept to a minimum and Sammo's influence is mainly seen in the finale. While not up to Sammo's usual high standards—a few too many quick cuts and close-ups for my taste--he still manages to make Van Damme look really good. When Van Damme throws down with Mickey Rourke at the Colisseum, the former gets to bust out some impressive legwork. At least I thought it was him. In recent years, it has surfaced that Van Damme might have been a bit too coked out to have performed those moves, so his stunt double Todd Senofonte (Fists of Legend 2: Iron Bodyguards) did those moves instead.  Rodman also gets to fight a little bit and looks quite like Kareem-Abdul Jabar from Game of Death. Incidentally, Rodman seems to have gotten along with Xiong Xin Xin quite a bit, because the two worked together on Rodman's film Simon Sez.

There's some stylish gunplay, although not stylish in the sense of being CGI enhanced and all filmed in slow-motion. Some of the scenes have a unique visual style to them, a style that Tsui Hark would make really good use of his next Van Damme movie Knock-Off.

This might've been a normal, run-of-the-mill action movie. Luckily, Tsui Hark's visual flair and some good fight direction from a pair of Hong Kong veterans bring this movie a couple of notches up from the usual. I guess that's where Asian talent lies, taking something normal and adding some style to it, thus making it look more original. With that said, it's a shame that the film didn't do so well in the box office. I remember the local newspaper giving the movie a comparatively good rating (**1/2 out of ****). However, if you want to see the beginnings of Hong Kong influence in American cinema this is a good place to start.