Sudden Death (1995)

Sudden Death (1995)

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Boothe, Raymond J. Barry, Whittni Wright, Ross Malinger, Dorian Harewood, Faith Minton
Director: Peter Hyams
Action Director(s): Tom Elliot, Gary Hymes, Brian Smrz

 

1994 had been a good year for Jean-Claude Van Damme, with him releasing his two most successful films at the box office: Timecop and Street Fighter. It also marked the peak of his mainstream success. His next project, Sudden Death, reunited him with Timecop director Peter Hyams for a more suspense-oriented thriller. In a lot of ways, this was an intelligent gamble: Hyams had directed his most successful movie and this film promised to be a sports riff on the Die Hard formula. If we remember that taking inspiration from Die Hard did well for Steven Seagal's career two years before in Under Siege, then it makes sense that Van Damme would do the same thing at some point. 

Van Damme plays Darren McCord, a former fireman who lost his nerve for the job after failing to save a child's trapped in a burning house. A couple of years later, he's working as a fire inspector at a stadium in Chicago(?), which just happens to be where the final game in that year's Stanley Cup is to be held. Of course, being a fire inspector is pretty easy work: changing emergency light bulbs, escorting paramedics if and when a spectator has an episode, making sure oily rags are left lying around, etc. It doesn't have the MANLY factor of real firefighting, which is sort of a sore point for his estranged children, especially his son Tyler (Ross Malinger, best known for Sleepless in Seattle). Thanks to his job, though, he has scored tickets to the Stanley Cup finals and convinces his ex-wife to let his kids go with him for the evening.

So while McCord is taking his children to meet the Penguins players and whatnot, a band of terrorists are murdering people all over the city as they get prepared to storm the stadium. Well, "storm" is too strong a word. You see, the Vice President (Raymond J. Barry, of Year of the Dragon and Training Day), will be watching the game along with some other distinguished persons, like the city mayor. Their VIP box will be catered by a master chef, who has final say as to which of his employees may take food into the special elevator. The terrorists take the chef's wife hostage, thus forcing him to let them, dressed as caterers, into the box. Other members of their team have infiltrated the place dressed as security, snack food handlers and even mascots. Their plan is successful and they successfully take the box and everyone inside hostage, unbeknownst to the thousands of fans watching the game.

Things get complicated when an argument between Tyler and his sister, Emily (Whittni Wright), ends with her running to the restroom to cry things off--McCord had given them specific instructions to stay in their seats. Unfortunately for her, Emily witnesses a female terrorist (Faith Minton, who did stunt work in Batman and Robin), dressed as the Penguins mascot, killing a female stadium employee. The killer takes Emily up to the VIP box and leaves her their with the rest of the hostages. Back in the kitchen, McCord shows up looking for his daughter and promptly runs into Miss Killer Mascot. A balls-to-the-wall fight breaks out and McCord barely makes it out with his life. When the security guard he reports the body to turns out to be a terrorist as well, McCord realizes that EVIL IS AFOOT!

Calling the police from one of the stadium's offices, McCord comes into contact with the Secret Service, who have joined the authorities outside the stadium. Agent Hallmark (voice actor Dorian Harewood) informs McCord that the stadium is rigged to explode, and to not go around playing hero. McCord, now realizing that his daughter is among the hostages, tells him to screw off and goes about playing hero. Using his experience as a veteran fireman, he figures out where the bombs would be placed based on the structural integrity of the locale and starts diffusing them. But he'll have a bunch of terrorists armed with automatic weapons dogging him at every turn.

Sudden Death marked the decline of Van Damme's box office power. The film made only 20 million USD domestic. Compare with the two movies he made the previous year, both of which had passed the 40 million mark. It did well enough in the international box office, plus VHS sales, to turn a profit. Nonetheless, I believe this was the point that American audiences started to feel that they had had enough of the Muscles from Brussels. At the very least, it meant that fewer and fewer of them would fork out money for movie tickets and overpriced popcorn to watch them. I guess a lot of people never forgave him for Street Fighter.

In some ways, this is surprising, considering that it is one of his better movies, all things considered. Director-cinematographer Peter Hyams knows how to shoot a film and make it look good, so it definitely has a lot of polish to it. Powers Boothe plays an excellent villain, mixing the suave and the utterly ruthless in perfect proportions. His band of terrorists are so organized and deadly--I'm sure they kill more innocent people than the ones in both Die Hard and Under Siege--that they not only hold the upper hand for most of the movie, but they actually become pretty scary. Van Damme's Darren McCord is definitely in over his head, and has to approach the problem with his head more than his fancy footwork, although he gets to show a little of that off from time to time. Beyond foregoing any explanation as to why McCord is a decent martial artist, he is completely believable as someone who simply has the smarts for the job: he knows the stadium like the back of his hand, he knows a thing or two about explosive (or at least flammable) materials, etc.

Action duties were given to Tom Elliot, who had worked with Van Damme on Cyborg and is a veteran of dozens of big-budget Hollywood movies. Assisting him is veteran Hollywood stunt man Gary Hymes (Speed and Broken Arrow) and Brian Smrz (Windtalkers). The action jumps back and forth between people getting shot and more physical scuffles between Van Damme and the bad guys. The best fight is actually the first one, where Van Damme faces off with Hollywood stunt woman Ruth Minton. Minton is suprisingly nimble for someone dressed in a bulky mascot outfit and their fight is extremely brutal. The two tear up the kitchen, hitting each other with knives and meat tenderizers and whatever else isn't bolted down. The following fight, against a faux security guard, is a bit more one-sided. In the last act, Van Damme faces off with two terrorists in a locker room, which ends in a way that will make most viewers wince. The rest of the action revolves big explosions and more large-scale stunts, like Van Damme's McCord swinging on a stadium light as if it were a vine. There are a couple of Under Siege-esque moments where McCord builds makeshift weapons from common items, not too unlike Casey Ryback. 

The film isn't perfect. With a running time of almost two hours, it is a good five-to-ten minutes too long and could have been trimmed here and there to tighten the pace.  And as long as the movie is, the ending is surprisingly abrupt. The opening conversation between McCord, his ex-wife, and her new husband feels a bit clunky: it's clear that the latter only opens his mouth to spout expository information. Thankfully, the scene is short enough that it doesn't hurt the rest of the movie. Some of the more fundamentalist Van Damme fans might balk at the idea of him not using his famous fancy footwork as much has he had in other films, or that the final confrontation is more about the basic stunts and pyrotechnics than about martial arts. The movie got a three-star rating in my newspaper, which is the best I'd ever seen for a movie of this ilk before Jackie and Jet came along. So with some adjusted expectations, I'm sure most action fans should enjoy this.