Assassination Games (2011)

Overrated

Load of rubbish!!

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The movie comes at you fast with a lot of major plot points in the beginning.The film opens with a Ukrainian wedding scene. Waiters are getting patted down. One waiter (Jean-Claude Van Damme), skilled in knives, cuts the throat of the big boss and escapes to his secret apartment...meanwhile another assassin, Flint lives in seclusion caring for his comatose wife (Bianca Van Varenberg).Also going on is a quick scene involving an Interpol corruption scandal and an investigation. Seems Interpol is selling guns that they seize back to the criminals. They are afraid that Flint(Scott Adkins) can take them down, so they order his assassination. In order to flush him out they release a crime boss named Polo (Ivan Kaye) from prison, who had gang raped and beat Flint's wife comatose. In addition to Flint, Jean-Claude Van Damme is also summoned to do the Polo assassination. Polo is hunting the man who killed his brother in the first scene.Now if this wasn't enough, Van Damme is distracted by his new neighbors, a prostitute (Marija Karan) and a pimp who beats her. Van Damme doesn't want Flint to kill Polo or else he loses his fee. Flint realizes Interpol set him up by freeing Polo, so he wants to kill them too. Everybody in the film is out to kill everybody else. Got all that?Unlikely alliances form to narrow down the factions. Outside of Van Damme, the acting was acceptable. While the plot sounds complex, it really isn't that hard to follow, unless you have problems following Steven Seagal movies. It takes a while to build up all the factions and reasons for wanting to kill each other, but once it does things move rather quickly.F-bomb (with Ukrainian accent), violence against women (its a Van Damme film), brief nudity, torture.

On paper there is a lot to like.Two assassins playing the same target, been done before, Stallone did it, sort of FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE "reimagined." There is a trope with the apartment that JCVD lives in. Also been done before. But it is fun for all of 60 seconds.Everyone is very macho. There is a switch-reversal where JCVD, asked to trade his life for a young girl's, lets them kill the girl. Strangely refreshing, at least if you watch a lot of films. Feminists won't be pleased But there is OH SO MUCH not to like: * terrible cinematography, seems like it was done on video, also seems the director felt that the best way to do a "film noire" in color was to darken everything and turn the contrast up til your brain screams * Adkins' career peaked playing a Russian pit fighter and has not found his inner Olivier since. JVCD peaked a long time ago but he can be fun if he wants to. In this film, he does not want to be.The payoff is terrible. Other than the dead girl mentioned above the whole film is full of ugly men in high contrast.Yuk.

"Assassination Games" is the movie I'm reviewing in this movie review. This movie stars Jean- Claude Van Damme and Scott Adkins. This movie came out in 2011. I believe it was some time in the last quarter of 2011. I happen to watch this movie on Netflix. I don't think this movie came out in the movie theater. When I saw the previews for it and saw that Van Damme was in the movie I was eager to see it. Judging from the previews it looked like the makings of a descent film.This movie is about two of the world's greatest assassins that don't know each other, but work together to achieve both of their personal goals.This was very good film to me. This film had a good plot. This film had a good story and the execution was on point with the film. The action was good and it was enough to fit this type of film. I felt like that was important. Lots of movies that are consider action movies have a problem with not putting enough or the right amount of action in the film. This film doesn't have that problem. The fight scenes were very good and believable. There's this one scene in the movie were the assassins are trying to kill the same guy and they bump heads. (didn't know each other at time) I thought that was pretty cool. Their mistakes on both of their behalf's were do to the fact that they were both excellent at what they did. You have to keep in mind (while watching the film) that this is an "assassination movie," not transformers. All in all, this was a descent film.A can't really say anything bad about this film. Don't expect Oscars acting performances either. As a fan of Van Damme, it was nice to see him in a movie again.My final rating for this film is going to be an 8 out of 10. Solid film, very good execution and is well deserving of it high score. If you have a couple of hours to burn and you like these kinds of movies, you have blessing to see this one. You won't be disappointed. Currently, this film is on Netflix, so watch it on there of course, but if I see this film in the movie store for fewer than ten dollars. I'm going to purchase it.

Keep in mind this is a 9 out of 10 for Jean Claude movies. I have them all and this one will be added soon. This was a good movie to show Jean Claude is back and ready for some better roles. He did not try to step out farther than his acting chops allow, but highlighted what he is good at, the strong silent type. His fellow screen-mates were all interesting, even though some clichés were readily identifiable. Loved the turtle and was super relieved he did not get squashed in the midst of battles. We loved it that all of the bad guys get it in the end. Was a little disappointed in how easily the main villain was let off after everything he had done... oh well... I hope this is a sign of things to come and that we can expect Jean to be back in action soon. This looks to be the case considering the films that show in post production on his page.