Double Team (1997)
8/10
Most people will dismiss this as junk. I, on the other hand...
22 September 2012
A logic-free action flick that stretches plausibility way beyond breaking point, Double Team stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as counter-terrorist expert Jack Quinn who, after a botched mission to kill international terrorist Stavros (Mickey Rourke), becomes an unwilling participant in a top secret think-tank on a remote island colony for agents that are considered 'too valuable to kill, but too dangerous to set free'.

When Stavros (Mickey Rourke) abducts Jack's pregnant wife, having vowed revenge for the accidental death of his son during the earlier shootout, Jack escapes the colony, seeks help from an S&M freak gun dealer named Yaz (played by eccentric basketball bad-boy Dennis Rodman), and embarks on a dangerous rescue mission that culminates in an explosive showdown inside a coliseum.

Opening with Quinn escaping from some bad guys by jumping a heavily armoured stolen vehicle through a speeding train (without the aid of a ramp), this film is completely crazy from the get go, and Hong Kong director Tsui Hark doesn't let the insanity subside until the very end, chucking in such spectacular nonsense as Van Damme kicking the crap out of bad guys while hanging from an air-plane cargo net, a Chinese killer who uses his knife with his foot, a top secret society of cyber-monks, and a finale that sees the good guys fight a tiger in the middle of a mine field before escaping certain death from fireball through the use of a Coke vending machine.

Special mention must also be made of the incredible amount of glass that gets smashed during the film (usually because someone has been thrown through it).

Although I'll never quite understand how this film got green-lit, I'm sure glad it did: a more enjoyably insane piece of 90s nonsense you'll be hard pushed to find.

Call me crazy, but I rate Double Team 8 out of 10 simply for being so bloody silly.
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