Sudden Death (1995)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

One of my all time favorites.

Absolutely brilliant

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This movie is hilarious. I mean, not on purpose, but still hilarious. It was totally bank-rolled by some guy that own a hockey stadium and wanted to break into Hollywood. So his wife whipped him up a standard action movie script, they hired a 90s action hero, and shot the entire movie in his hockey stadium.The plot is paper thin and makes very little sense. The main hero is a simple fireman who appears to be a world-class martial artist. No explanation is given for his magical fighting powers. But the Vice President is in danger at the Stanley Cup and our hapless hero basically stumbles into the bad guys by accident.Pick an action movie trope from the 1990s and it is in there.At one point our hero fights a terrorist dressed in a giant penguin costume. And there isn't even a wink at the camera. It is deadly-serious mortal combat that get strangely dark and ends pretty gruesomely.Do not be fooled. This movie was not supposed to be funny, it is 100% serious about itself. I laughed myself stupid, and I hope you will too.

A strange movie. I mean really strange.Die Hard was done in 1988. In 1992 Steven Seagal did Under Siege and to be frank it was an awesome film. In 1994 the venerable JCVD did what is possibly the best film of his own (post-Bloodsport) career, Timecop.And then we have 1995. My best guess is that a producer figured the world could use one more Die Hard/Under Siege clone, and that JCVD should star in it.The same genius figured it should be done on a shoestring budget, and set in a hockey arena where the editor could "fill space" by inter-cutting scenes from the game.The main "character" is a fire Marshall who (best guess on this backstory) had a JCVD fetish and studied MMA between fire drills.As a stand-alone film, it is pretty awful. The plot is dumb. The hockey is distracting. The fight scenes are wretched. JCVD looks mainly lost.The good news is a classic "trope" where (not making this up) the hero, trying to avoid the assassins chasing him, decides the best strategy is to dress up as the goalie in a Stanley Cup game and wander out onto the ice. Where the coach puts him in the net! It is so outrageous it almost works! And Powers Boothe knows more about playing bad guys than even real bad guys.

You Can Count on a Peter Hyams Movie to Look Sharp with a Sort of Dazzle and Style Expected from a Director of Photography Turned Director. You Can Count on a Van Damme Movie to be, Well, a Van Damme Movie.So No One Seeing this Should be Surprised at what They Get. A Good Looking No Brainy Actiony Thingy. This One was Made Back when This Type was Rated R, Mostly for Violence, and there were No Qualms about Putting Children in Direct Danger and Kicking and Shooting Some Serious Butt. But at the Time there were a Lot of Formulaic Films, and that's OK Because if it Works it Works, and this was Part of a Group of Die-Hard Followups that by this Time were Starting to Wear Out Their Welcome. It Flopped Domestically.But the Movie is Big Budget Fun and if You Like JCVD or Hockey or Both this Ones for You. For Action Fans it has that R Rated Edge and Never Stops being Entertaining. Not a Lot of Logic but Loads of Laughs and Some Very Cold Villains.

Fans attending the NHL Stanley Cup 7th game between Chicago and Pittsburgh certainly get more than they could ever anticipate at any game. They even have our hero Jean C. Van Damme in the game thwarting goals by the opposing team.The violence abounds here with just about everyone either dodging or taking bullets. Powers Boothe shines as the man hell-bent on having funds transferred to various banks under the threat of blowing the stadium apart. He holds the Vice President and others as hostages and shows how ruthless he can really become. Hostages are shot including the mayor's hysterical sobbing wife.Van Damme takes on the Rambo like character with a charismatic force. Naturally, his children are on the scene and he has something to prove as two years before, he was unable to rescue a child in a fire.