Episode 82 — Double Team

[SlidePocket 707]

You guys forget to mention that Double Team was nominated for and won three Razzies, and they're all for Dennis Rodman. He won Worst Supporting Actor, Worst New Star and Worst Screen Couple for him and Jean-Claude Van Damme. In the Worst Supporting Actor category, Rodman beat out the likes of Willem Dafoe for Speed 2 and both Chris O'Donnell and Arnold Schwarzenegger for Batman and Robin! Considering these two movies were previously covered for the show prior to Double Team, that's some tough competition!

[inactiveuser501 168]

Completely agree with June that Rodman gave a fine job. I compared this movie to Fair Game a lot, and Rodman definitely had more better reads than Cindy Crawford.

 

Also, Jason may have been on to something with the idea that Stavros owns the tiger. That tiger both reveals Van Damme and is his method to kill him (Of course, that would have meant Stavros had to have set up the entire carnival before hand, or my personal favorite theory, that Stavros bought the tiger after the shootout)

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Why was there no discussion of the Crystal Waters/Dennis Rodman collabo track at the end of the movie?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRn9uy2yQcc

[LukeLegere 1]

i have an omission. when the lasers are shut off for the airdrop, they make every resident of the colony press their thumbs to the pad, so they don't have a chance to escape in the water. jcvd rigged a device to get around this. does that mean the dolph lundren type guy in the scuba gear ALSO rigged a device to get around this? or did he have help? OR does the thumb thing just do nothing at all?

[Protoman 117]

Lol I love the stunned silence after June says she thought Rodman did a fine job

[Kickpuncher 5012]

Anyone remember the EA Sports NBA games for the SNES and Genesis? It started with Lakers vs. Celtics, and then just started naming itself after whoever was in the NBA Finals, but then it just became Bulls vs. Lakers, Bulls vs. Blazers, etc. until they just re-named the series NBA Showtime or NBA Live or whatever it was, because it had basically just become the "Bulls Vs." series anyway.

 

Not only do I remember them, but I remember LOVING Rodman's hair being a weird color in one of the games given that this was an era of a mere handful of generic player models and hairstyles.

[sledge 1]

The theme of this episode was: 1) indiscriminate ADR and 2) the indiscriminate violence rained down on women and babies.

 

Why? I think I have the answer. This movie was the American directorial debut (and finale so far as I know) of Hong Kong director Tsui Hark. Anyone familiar with Hong Kong action films of that period knows that there is no taboo saying that you can't shoot a woman or handicapped person in a hospital nursery (check out John Woo's Hard Boiled).

 

As for the ADR, HK directors of this period also love to use ADR. This is because back in the day, HK film productions shot fast. It was too expensive to have a quiet set (what if the set for tomorrow's scene was under construction next door?). Besides, most HK films would be redubbed into other languages anyway when they were shown in mainland China, Malaysia, Philippines, etc.., And what if you decide to make major script changes after the movie has finished shooting? That's what ADR is for.

 

This movie was supposed to be Tsui Hark's Broken Arrow.... but was not.

[OctavisWitcher 22]

I want to nominate another "hero" of this movie and that would be those involved in making and maintaining the "glass" in this movie. It seemed like every chance this movie had, someone was thrown on, into, around, or near glass.

 

I believe it was briefly mentioned, but I have to bring up the scene where the tiger "falls". I audibly gasped when that poor animal fell from who knows how high onto who knows what.

 

One thing I love about most of the movies done on HDTGM is the fact that they all seem to begin with an opening scene that seems to start in the middle. I find myself rewinding and/or checking the wiki to make sure I'm not missing something. Nope. Always bad filmmaking.

[Joven 373]

I want to nominate another "hero" of this movie and that would be those involved in making and maintaining the "glass" in this movie. It seemed like every chance this movie had, someone was thrown on, into, around, or near glass.

 

I believe it was briefly mentioned, but I have to bring up the scene where the tiger "falls". I audibly gasped when that poor animal fell from who knows how high onto who knows what.

 

 

Not to mention when Stavros enters the darkened hospital, after killing the guy at the desk, theres some unbroken glass...which he then smashes for no reason.

 

Also cats always land on their feet, and like sharks raining from the sky, just want to chompa-chompa some guy, it was fine.

[HotSaucerman 2051]

I hated this movie. But the funniest part to me, was the foot switchblade guy when he jumped out of his shoes and kicked them at Van Damme. That's like some shit I would've done to my little brother when we were kids.

 

And then there was the persistence in that tiger. He seemed like he was pissed that Van Damme was running away. Further proof that he's in cahoots with Mickey Rourke.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

 

Not only do I remember them, but I remember LOVING Rodman's hair being a weird color in one of the games given that this was an era of a mere handful of generic player models and hairstyles.

That WAS pretty mind-blowing at the time, as up to that point, every player was either indistinguishable white guy or indistinguishable black guy. I can still remember a little further back, to like "Michael Andretti Racing" or something like that, where the big innovation was that you could drive a red car OR a blue car. In the SINGLE PLAYER game! Ho. Lee. Shit.

[Jesse Carrigan 119]

I thought they were specifically NOT trying to assassinate Stavros. They go through this whole thing about needing to capture him alive and about the sniper rifle being modified to shoot tranquilizer darts. In which case the other people, including Stavros' son, weren't in danger of being killed, so there was no reason to hesitate. Also they did a terrible job of planning for the other hundred cronies with automatic weapons, and I have no idea how they thought that was going to go. That whole operation was preposterous.

[Jesse Carrigan 119]

I'm also with June, I realized that I do love me a good training montage. It actually did seem kind of ingenious how he improvised things. Also JCVD has the best training face ever.

[DeathToMikeyBay 130]

Don't ask me why, but for some reason I burst out laughing when the title came up. Scrolling title followed by double mirror scrolling titles. It looked like someone's very first crack at animating text in Final Cut.

 

Speaking of titles, saw a movie review site that came up with a good alternate one: Ebony, Ivory, Stupidity

[JimKata 62]

Other "All-American" Van Damme character names:

 

Gibson Rickenbacker (Cyborg)

Kurt Sloane (Kickboxer)

Louis Burke (Death Warrant)

Alex/Chad Wagner (Double Impact)

Darren McCord (Sudden Death)

Eddie Lomax (Desert Heat)

Ben Archer (Wake of Death)

Anthony Stowe (Until Death)

[HotSaucerman 2051]

For my money, "Bloodsport" and "Kickboxer" are the only two Van Damme movies that are worth a Van Damme.

[RachelWilliams 7]

Will the cybermonks turn up in Jason's script for Nundercover?

[neilly 105]

Other "All-American" Van Damme character names:

 

Gibson Rickenbacker (Cyborg)

Kurt Sloane (Kickboxer)

Louis Burke (Death Warrant)

Alex/Chad Wagner (Double Impact)

Darren McCord (Sudden Death)

Eddie Lomax (Desert Heat)

Ben Archer (Wake of Death)

Anthony Stowe (Until Death)

Dont forget:

 

Chance Boudreaux (Hard Target)

 

Not very All-American, but totally f*cking awesome!

[cmac94 191]

I didn't get a chance to see this movie, but from what it sounds like I understand that this movie's sole purpose is to be a vehicle for tongue-in-cheek references for Rodman's basketball career.

 

Am I wrong?

[IHugKittens 53]

3: if people in the colony need to be in their rooms during the air drop and pick up, then how does JCVD know where to go to hitch a ride on the plane? he would have no idea what side of the island the plane would be, nor would he have known enough info for that plan to work; unless he's left his room a few times, but he never did.

 

That's exactly what I was wondering as well! My assumption was that he had used the sliced off fingerprint several times before the escape in order to go out and observe the air drop. But I am probably wrong since that was just my brain intuitively searching for the most reasonable explanation and things that happened in that movie were anything but reasonable.

 

Why did that tiger keep stalking JCVD without doing anything? It could have jumped and ripped him apart at any time, it didn't have a problem killing that thug with the ponytail. But with JCVD it was just walking to him in a threatening Tom & Jerry manner. It almost felt like if it had come any closer it would have started stepping really slowly on two feet raising his paws and opening his mouth wiiiiide realllyyyyyy slooooowwwwly, giving Jean Claude time to escape right at the moment it's teeth snap... Or shove a grenade down it's throat, because why not this movie loved grenades.

[PhilipDavetas 0]

I can't remember where I saw it. I think maybe on JCVD's THE QUEST DVD, where he's talking about movies in his past and how he had made bad career choices and basically being duped into making them. In that interview he talks about when he got the script for DOUBLE TEAM (not sure if that's what it was called at the time), but he said it was a great script whatever that means. It wasn't until Rodman got on board that the script was changed around to give Rodman more to do. In fact, I think the Rodman character was created for that movie. It's worth looking up I'm sure, but I'm more curious about what a great script means to JCVD. But here's an interesting JCVD flick to watch, KNOCK OFF. Great flick to make fun of, but also a really good time.

[Jesse Carrigan 119]

Other "All-American" Van Damme character names:

 

...

Eddie Lomax (Desert Heat)

...

 

Sounds like we have a convergence with another great HDTGM movie, The Devil's Advocate, in which Keanu Reeves' character is named Kevin Lomax. I'm imagining a world in which Kevin and Eddie are brothers and have divergent adventures as a lawyer for the devil and a martial artist, respectively.

[Louisjab 50]

This movie was supposed to be Tsui Hark's Broken Arrow.... but was not.

 

Or his Hard Target, as they went up to using the same lead actor.

[Louisjab 50]

I've seen quite a few Van Damme movie (stopped counting, probably over 20) and the movie studios always dealt with his accent in one of the three following ways:

 

1- He's not American (in which case, every other country is a good answer, it doesn't matter whether or not the accent match the country). He played Belgian, French, Russian, Hong Konger and French-Canadian characters (Louis Burke in Death Warrant is from Quebec)

 

2- He's an American, we gave him an American name, and no one in the movie will even question why he has this accent.

 

3- He's a cajun from Louisiana. Luc Devereaux and Chance Boudreaux are cajun characters, which is the middle ground studios used to jsutify the French accent while still having an American as the hero.

[MondayCity 194]

I didn't get a chance to see this movie, but from what it sounds like I understand that this movie's sole purpose is to be a vehicle for tongue-in-cheek references for Rodman's basketball career.

 

That reminds me, did Rodman ever rebound from this project? He seemed pointless in the movie. And was there any profit?--I'm not talking gross ticket sales; I mean nothing but net.

 

Booyah!