Sudden Death 1995, Rated R

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Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Going into a situation such as this, with my expectations for the movie as poor as Van Damme's acting, the only thing I could hope for was that the on-screen action was too unbelievable. Harrison Ford diving off the top of a dam to escape Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive? Fine. Steven Seagal creating a bomb out of Crisco and Pepsi? Sure. Van Damme stepping out onto the ice during the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals as a goalie and making the save of a decade? No. Van Damme opening the retractable dome of the Pittsburgh Civic Arena during the middle of a game and having the audience oblivious? Negative. Jeff Shantz scoring a goal for the Blackhawks in the playoffs? Sure, and I'll bet you some swampland you'd like to sell me too. However, even despite these seemingly off-base occurrences, as an action film, Sudden Death is fairly entertaining.

The most well oiled man this side of Richard Simmons stars here as Darren McCord, a fire marshal working at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Security is tight because the vice-president is in attendance, but that doesn't stop Van Damme from scoring two tickets to the deciding game of the Stanley Cup Finals and brings his kids to watch. Terrorists quickly infiltrate the arena's security system and take the vice-president hostage, demanding some $1.7 billion for his release. It is up to Van Damme to correct things.

What makes this film work, more so that Van Damme usual vehicles, is that here he isn't a) locked in a cage fighting a Thai warrior to the death, b) fighting a tiger, one on one, or c) just running around kicking people with no reflection to the screenplay. While I will stop short of calling Sudden Death a smart movie-I think just naming a film 'Sudden Death' effectively removes it from that list of cerebral films-it does stand out noticeably above Van Damme's body of work.

Part of this stems from the fact that the plot of Sudden Death is simple, meeting the obvious requirements of the "Die Hard in a hockey arena" idea, but a greater part of this comes from the superlative use of stunts and fight choreography.

Hyams, who knows a thing or two about making an exciting film with both Running Scared and The Relic under his belt, follows the action in Sudden Death in a crisp fashion, not allowing Van Damme to ham up the material to any great extent. However, the greatest achievement of Hyams' in this film came with his startlingly good use of crane shots, often beginning a take on the ice, working his way up to the roof of the arena at the end of the take.

Sudden Death isn't The Peacemaker, but is, succinctly, a well-directed, action film, with several very impressively shot stunts, starring Jean Claude Van Damme. If you still find yourself searching for a reason to see this film, just ask yourself this: where else are you going to be able to see the Blackhawks the Stanley Cups Finals?