SkullScreamerReturns

Sudden Death is not often brought up as one of Van Damme's most iconic movies but it might be my personal favorite. Yes, it might also be a little bit of a Die Hard clone - but with an interesting setting; I really like the hockey stadium as a location because it has both claustrophobic feel and space for adventuring. It's just an interesting building. And the extra heat is added when there is a bomb about to explode and the whole crowd is unknowing just watching the game. I'm not even an ice hockey fan in real life but somehow it just works in this movie. Check it out if you like classic (a bit cheesy) action movies!

This is one of those movies where the trailer has all the spectacular shots but when you see the actual film there is too much talking and meandering for an action film. For example I remember J-C doing the split, and when he's almost run over by a truck, from the tv commercial at the time when it was new. Those images make me feel hopeful that the movie might be better than I remember...but every time I watch it again it's even more boring than I remembered! I've always wanted to like this movie because I like Van Damme, and the movie title and poster are cool, but even when I saw it as a teenager and was perhaps more forgiving towards mediocre action movies I already thought it was a lukewarm movie. Only recommended for biggest Van Damme fans really.

John Wayne is so old in this movie it's difficult to believe he's supposed to be one of the top fastest drawing gunmen around. But he has his cheesy charisma, he's like a cartoon character. All he has to do is to talk with his deep voice and it's funny and cool. We also have Robert Mitchum who I think plays the best performance in the film. Also nice to see James Caan though he is more of a slightly comedic side character. Well, not that anyone else is being really serious anyway.

The plot starts interesting but somewhere in the middle I started to feel it's too long and kind of meandering. Maybe there are too many side characters and all kind of sidenote babbling that slows down the momentum. In a way it feels like Wayne was having a siesta all the time, just hanging around and lazily talking without any hurry to do anything. Maybe it's the script and the 50s-60s idea of filmmaking. The over two hours length felt unnecessary, you could trim it to a lot shorter length and the plot would still make sense.

Overall not bad but not really captivating either. Worth a watch if you like the lead actors.