Sudden Death.

Review #2510: Sudden Death.

Cast:

Jean-Claude Van Damme (Darren McCord), Powers Boothe (Joshua Foss), Raymond J. Barry (U.S. Vice President Daniel Bender), Dorian Harewood (Matthew Hallmark), Whittni Wright (Emily McCord), Ross Malinger (Tyler McCord), Michael Gaston (Hickey), Faith Minton (Carla), Paul Mochnick (Andrew Ferrara), Audra Lindley (Angeline Ferrara), and Jack Erdie (Scratch) Directed by Peter Hyams (#233 - 2010: The Year We Make Contact, #326 - Timecop, #2477 - A Sound of Thunder)

Review: 

"I was not a hockey fan. I had not been to a hockey game before. I started to do research, and then I started to watch the Penguins play. I began to realize the unbelievable athleticism involved, and the violence involved and the speed of that puck. Hockey is better in the arena than it is on television. It’s a phenomenal sport."

What better day to do a movie about hockey than a few days after the United States of America managed to beat the odds and win the gold medal in hockey (and in true gender equality: the men and women each won*)? What better time to see a movie that could basically be thought of as an ad for a hockey team? The original story came from Karen Baldwin, an aspiring actress who became part of a producing firm with her husband Howard, which basically came on the side of sports ownership, as the Baldwins were among the owners of the Pittsburgh Penguins (as was the case from 1992-1998*). At the time, the team played in the Civic Arena, and the unique roof of the venue that could open up apparently led to Karen thinking about the possibility of doing "something like Die Hard in a hockey arena", which also matched with a story the Baldwins had tried to do about a Soviet goaltender trying to defect because they were wearing a mask; Gene Quintano then wrote the screenplay. When Peter Hyams (not exactly a hockey fan at the time) was approached, he was astounded to see the Baldwins willing to do a movie with so much action in their own venue (he proceeded to suggest a fight scene with a killer dressed up as the team mascot). Of course, the 1994-95 league lockout hindered them in getting the proper filming for crowds, and a good variety of the hockey action ended up being the work of local hockey players (while Mike Lange and Paul Steigerwald provided commentary). As the second collaboration between Hyams and Jean-Claude Van Damme (after Timecop), the movie was a mild success at the time while becoming a rental favorite. 

It does kind of boggle the mind to have your hockey team be part of a movie that has the following: the team mascot getting into a fight with the lead hero (before getting brutally killed), team security basically being humiliated at all costs (mayhem after every period ends no less), and, to top it all, the lead villain wearing Penguins gear right before he dies in "death by helicopter stalling". Of course, the funniest thing is the movie just...ends, because I could only wonder how a hockey game continues after all that. For a movie that freely cribs from Die Hard, except with trying to disarm bombs, it is quite fascinating to see it all play out (right down to a henchman playing Doom), unless one doesn't like violence in their action movie - the body count on this film of people who die is actually considerable, jeez.. This was a movie that had both of its hero and villain cast because other people rejected it (Sylvester Stallone and James Woods, for example) and yet each manage to have a ball with the roles presented here, mostly in the case of Boothe, who has tremendous alacrity to engage with the mayhem without just having it mosey on by. Van Damme may never have really been a great action star in terms of variety, but he at least was still committed enough in physicality to at least make it worthwhile to see him kick the hell out of someone dressed up as a mascot. As much as it would be nice to have some presence from the hostages besides cursory interest from Barry, the movie doesn't hesitate in just going with the mayhem. The maneuvering of the plot does not exactly gel completely with reality (bomb detonations are to be delayed by the onset of overtime because, well, I guess even terrorists wanted to make sure they didn't miss the finale before blowing it up?), but the movie manages to move its machinery for 110 minutes without treating the audience as if they were entitled to be liked for the sake of being liked. You either buy what it is selling (complete with rooftop action for the climax) or you just wash it away quickly. As a whole, Hyams shot and directed a decent little film that basically maneuvers itself the way you would hope for a wind-up action movie in an era where cribbing from others was fine as long as you had some craftsmanship behind it. It's not a great movie, but being good enough is fine anyway.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night presents: Song of the day

*It should be noted that Howard Baldwin was behind the change of the iconic Penguins logo for, well, a loser logo that never won anything when it was around because...merchandising. Also he called the old logo a "pigeon". Just goes to show that rich people really do sometimes have no taste at all.

*I mean this with only a lit bit of venom towards the sore losers towards how the men's/women's hockey games went: Suck it Canada!