Film Journal 14 – Double Team

Dennis Rodman, who speaks almost entirely in basketball terms (note the title), is partnered with Jean-Claude Van Damme in this absolutely hilarious action movie by the supposedly renowned Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark. I have only seen this film, and as a result intend to stay away from anything connected with his name. I did know, even before I was aware of the movie, that it would be god-awful; however, my expectations were surpassed by quite a bit. It was hard to follow the story because every scene was interrupted by some act of violence (be it an explosion, a gun fight, or even just a fist fight).
I’ve watched a decent number of action movies because they are reliably terrible. The inept actors and positively ludicrous stories really make me laugh quite a bit. There are some elements of this film (Double Team) that seem essential to all bad (possibly the good as well—though good action movie sounds paradoxical) action movies: explosions before the opening credits, a super-agent who has moved on, a wife who opposes the super-agent’s line of work, young children as collateral damage, some sort of conspiracy, and finally a villain* who wants to destroy the world .
The conspiracies involved, as I said in Journal 12, are probably what draw my interest. In this movie, the government has a secret island where they send all of their agents who are “too valuable to execute, but too dangerous to be free”. This entire movie seems to have been written by 10-13 year old boys. I would highly recommend this movie if you are looking for one that lacks ALL aspects of decent film. When you know this before watching it there is a certain amount of enjoyment that can be had. It’s the kind of Schadenfreude that one does not have to feel guilty over.

*Antagonist, to me, implies a certain depth. The writer’s of bad action films can decorate the villain with as many details as they want, but they (the villains) always seem to have extremely evil plans, power, and wickedness at the expense of depth.