Double Team

100417 / 16 / US / 1997 / Tsui Hark / / action

Double Team / Double Team. PC: Mandalay Entertainment. A Columbia release. P: Moshe Diamant. D: Tsui Hark. DP: Pater Pau. Martial arts: Samo Hung. PD: Marek Dobrowolski. ED: Bill Pankow. CAST: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman, Mickey Rourke. 91’. Scope. MPAA 35076. Rating R = 17. Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Timo Porri / Eirik Udd. DIST: Columbia TriStar Egmont Finland. Viewed at VET, Helsinki, Friday, 3 October 1997. *** Van Damme’s best movie so far is the lucky result of a genial production team. It’s the US debut of the Hong Kong wizards Tsui Hark and Samo Hung, and the screen debut of Dennis Rodman, who brings colour and humour to the screen, in perfect contrast to the single-minded Van Damme. It’s flamboyant, it’s outlandish, and it does not care about logic. It’s about magic and miracle and the joy of spectacle. The plot is forgettable and some twists objectionable (shooting innocents, risking lives of babies), but there are several funny inventions (the cybermonks in the catacombs of Rome). To be admired is also the very precise sense of using time lapse and the bold and consistent colour scheme. Hopefully Van Damme will work with these guys again.