Theme: Prison

In Hell (2003) – Jean-Claude Van Damme

This movie kicks off with a gruesome explicit gory tooth-pulling exercise within prison, shortly followed by a sexual assault and murder scene. It’s clearly trying to distress the viewer while unravelling the backstory.

Van Damme’s character soon finds himself in jail, sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole, for killing his wife’s murderer who paid off the judge and escaped all charges.

Within 20 minutes there’s a fairly explicit depiction of prison guard organised sexual assault by one inmate against another in exchange for money paid to the prison guards. Van Damme spots a resemblance in the rude mannerisms of the perpetrator, to the guy who killed his wife, and starts a fight with him. From here, he’s locked away in a filthy solitary cell, and tries to kill himself, but fails. Next, he finds himself sharing a cell with someone who has a habit of killing his cellmates.

About half an hour in, Van Damme makes some friends – with the victim from earlier, and a guy in a wheelchair. Soon after that, it gets more interesting, as we start to see organised prison fights. Unfortunately the fight announcer is an extroverted cross-dresser, but when that’s out of the way we can start to see the meat & gravy of this movie warming up nicely. Still, it’s not till nearly an hour in when Van Damme first participates in one of the organised prison fights. There’s a lot more drama and a lot less action in this movie than there probably ought to be, so far as Van Damme’s usual fan base are concerned. Add to that the various forms of unpleasantries and I don’t think I can rate this movie any higher than So-So, on a par with Death Warrant – another Van Damme prison movie released 13 years prior to In Hell.

To its credit, the final boss that Van Damme fought in this movie probably inspired the final boss that Scott Adkins fought in Undisputed 4, some 13 years later again.

The Shepherd (2008) – Jean-Claude Van Damme and Scott Adkins

The Shepherd is a movie of three parts, in terms of quality. Excusing the pointless, irrelevant & boring opening scene that drags on for 5 minutes, it soon gets off to a very interesting start after that, with a great bar scene reminiscent of the iconic scene outside the bar in Hard Target. Then it tails off into a still interesting but less brilliant movie, as Van Damme deals with criminals crossing the border in his usual kickass style, massively outperforming his comrades. Then the backend of the movie becomes a bit monotonous though, as Van Damme gets trapped in a Mexican prison then handed over to the cartel where he gets tortured a bit and eventually fights his way out, and that’s pretty much the end of the story although there’s half an hour to burn while he’s in the cartel’s hands so the ending is over extended and gets a bit boring for those who’ve seen this movie a few times before even if not in the last few years.

Scott Adkins plays the main muscle of the bad guys. He does a fair job as usual – nice moves but skin-deep emotion.

Natalie J Robb plays the lead female quite well, with vibes of Kate & Ziva from early seasons of NCIS. She plays Van Damme’s boss in the New Mexico border force that he’s assigned to.

Overall I rate it an OK movie, although it had so much more potential early on.

Double Team (1997) – Jean-Claude Van Damme

This movie gets started with a cocktail of unpleasantries, from extreme queer exhibitionism to crying babies.

But it gets interesting shortly after 20 mins in, when Jean-Claude Van Damme gets essentially kidnapped by the agency he worked for, after disobeying a direct order. He’s held on a mysterious prison island and presented with the choice of keep working from a tight leash else be killed immediately. He manages to escape, and goes after the man who kidnapped his wife & child, with the help of his heavily pierced weird friend played by Dennis Rodman. Mickey Rourke plays the main antagonist in this movie. That’s all the significant characters already.

I rate it somewhere between So-So and OK, due to its balance of strengths and weaknesses. The last quarter an hour can get particularly boring for people who have seen this movie a few times before, even if not in the last few years.

Death Warrant (1990) – Jean-Claude Van Damme

Death Warrant is an OK-ish movie from early in Jean-Claude Van Damme‘s career.

Supporting cast includes Paulo Tocha from Bloodsport two years prior. He also appeared a few years later in another Van Damme prison movie called In Hell.

In this movie, Van Damme plays an undercover cop, who enters a prison where a lot of people are mysteriously dying. He’s on a mission to get to the bottom of it – to find out who is killing who and why – and of course to put an end to it. But everything turns to sheet when the guards pin someone else’s murder on him, then bring in his nemesis from the outside world to torture him.

It’s excessively uncomfortable on multiple occasions and for this reason I rate it barely OK. Let’s call it So-So. It’s got its strengths and its weaknesses – it’s got plenty of the good stuff you’d expect from any Van Damme movie, but when I set out to watch a Van Damme movie I don’t really want to be watching the kind of extended uncomfortable scenes that this movie has in several places, including repeated graphic depictions of Van Damme’s nemesis ‘the Sandman’ slowly embedding the tip of his knife into Van Damme’s abdomen as Van Damme gasps in agony. This stuff should have been condensed and made less explicit too.

Undisputed (2002) – Wesley Snipes

MARTIAL ARTS value ⭐⭐⭐⭐
ACTION value ⭐⭐⭐
PLOT value ⭐
CAST value ⭐⭐⭐

This is a movie about a prisoner played by Wesley Snipes, locked up for life after being an undefeated California state boxing champion, now a 10 year reigning prison champ, having an organised fight inside prison with the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, recently given a short sentence, played by Ving Rhames (the hacker from Mission Impossible). That’s it, two guys meet in prison and arrange to fight. That’s as far as the plot goes. The actual fight scene at the end is quite boring and dragged out for a good 20 minutes. If not for the very respectable cast members, this movie would not be worth watching, but Wesley is his usual self and mildly entertaining in this poor excuse for an action movie. Ving Rhames is average in his role. We’re also treated by a supporting role from Peter Falk (of Columbo) who does a good job, as well as Fisher Stevens (the bad guy from Hackers) who ain’t bad, and Michael Rooker (leader of the Ravager pirates who adopted Peter Quill in the Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy) who is pretty good here. So we’ve got a decent cast, working with a barely existent script. Sack the writer and the director. Give this team something serious to work on.

Half Past Dead (2002) – Steven Seagal and Ja Rule

This is an OK action movie, for Steven Seagal fans. It’s got some weak bits and some strong bits.

This movie stars Steven Seagal alongside Ja Rule, and they make a funny duo in how they both have a very awkward fake ghetto accent. Just like many people in the martial arts community have been making fun of Seagal, many people in the rap community have been making fun of Ja Rule – both accused of being terribly fake. Having said that, I do believe Seagal is half way legit. The YouTubers who mock him generally don’t know what they’re talking about. As for Ja Rule, I can’t disagree with the criticism. But his acting is satisfactory here – he makes a good team with Seagal – their acting is equally cringeworthy.

The plot of Half Past Dead is quite a fun concept, at least for the first half of the movie. Seagal is his usual hotshot self, but gets shot and nearly killed by the FBI while working for some gangsters alongside Ja Rule. Then they both end up in Alcatraz – a prison on an island, that’s theoretically impossible to escape from (until it gets raided by an elite squad of parachuting mercenaries). This is all within the first half hour.

Another plot twist, or revelation, occurs half way in, as we learn who Seagal’s character really is.

Style wise, a lot of the action scenes are clearly taking inspiration from The Matrix, with similar music as they rock up with machine guns, then later walking up walls and doing axe kicks in slow motion while wearing long black coats, etc. It’s like some kind of poundshop Matrix impersonation.

Supporting cast is not bad. It’s an OK movie. But the plot becomes a bit dead after half way through. It should be called Dead Past Half. After a strong story has been built, and things are starting to get really interesting, it then gets stuck in a hole and never moves on. We just get a load of white noise music accompanying meaningless flickering gunfire scenes, like kids suddenly took over the movie and made a mess of it. It has a very respectable first half, and very weak second half. Maybe they ran out of budget and cut the story short? I fast-forwarded through the last 15 minutes and didn’t miss anything worth rewinding & slowing down for.

Half Past Dead (2002)

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006) – Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White

With Undisputed II, the plot has improved a bit since the last one (although to be fair, any plot at all would have been an improvement).

Scott Adkins does alright here as Yuri Boyka – we don’t see much of his character come out until half way through the movie, since he’s meant to be a cold character, but when he realises his opponent was drugged so his victory was not legitimate, we see a bit more of what he’s about and can begin to sympathise with his character. For what script he’s been given, he does very well with it. He makes a convincing character, and his high spinning kicks & tricks are quite incredible in this movie.

This may also be one of Michael Jai White’s best performances, as the world heavyweight champion George Chambers who’s had drugs planted on him just to get him inside a mafia-controlled prison in Kiev so that Yuri Boyka can have a challenge in someone decent to fight. I’m not the biggest fan of MJW as an action hero, but he holds down this role very well.

Supporting cast range from mediocre to decent – not quite the circle of legends from the original Undisputed (2002) who were twiddling their thumbs trying to make a movie without a script; but still there’s some credible supporting actors here, especially Mark Ivanir who performs impressively in the role of the mafia boss called Gaga, and Eli Danker who does a decent job as Nikolai aka Crot the old man who helps George Chambers a bit.

It would have been nice to have another strong character in this movie, since Scott Adkins has such a cold role here, and there’s no women involved, making it a bit of a dull movie but still not as bad as the first in the Undisputed saga. It’s actually got a surprisingly good ending considering how slow it can be at other times. Don’t miss the further sequels as some of these issues may be rectified a bit.

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010) – Scott Adkins

This is a much better movie than Undisputed II, which itself was a much better movie than the original Undisputed movie.

In ‘Undisputed III: Redemption’, Scott Adkins reprises his role as Yuri Boyka, now crippled with 1 broken leg after losing the last fight, and outcast to the filthy depths of Gaga’s prison – a similar position the Nikolai, the man in the wheelchair who helped his rival in Undisputed II.

Undisputed III is about the crippled beaten fighter, recovering to a level where he can fight again, but not yet fully recovered. This time, he surprises everyone by beating Gaga’s new champion Sykov, to earn himself a shot in an international prisoner tournament, then surprises everyone again by beating the guy given favourable treatment by the establishment. That’s literally the script in a nutshell, hence why I don’t rate it highly on plot, and the action is a bit monotonous, but it’s still clearly better than Undisputed II.

Other contestants include an American boxer called Turbo (played by Mykel Shannon Jenkins), a talented Brazilian capoeirista called Santiago Silva (played by Lateef Crowder), etc.

Undisputed III is like a cross between Van Damme’s movie In Hell (2003) where he fights prison battles organised by the wardens, and Van Damme’s other movie Bloodsport (or The Quest) where tournament contestants come from all around the world, showcasing their different styles.

I won’t spoil the story by going into further detail, I’ll just say this movie is a level above the ones before it in the Undisputed saga – a series of movies where each one is markedly better than the one before it (so far).

Scott Adkins does a good job, as do most of the other significant cast members, including Mykel Jenkins the American boxer who befriends Boyka; Mark Ivanir who plays Gaga; and Marko Zaror who plays Dolor, the Colombian fighter who is the main antagonist in this movie aside from the prison bosses & military leaders in charge.

In-keeping with the pattern of improving upon the last one, Undisputed III also has a good ending, even better than that from Undisputed II.

Boyka: Undisputed IV (2016) – Scott Adkins

The Undisputed saga is quite unusual in how every next movie is better than the one before it, and this movie is no exception to this – at least in a way (mood wise, and maybe also plot wise) Undisputed IV is considerably better than the already much improved Undisputed III.

The cast is about as good as previously, but cast was never much of a problem in this saga. We have a lot of new faces now – only Yuri Boyka (played by Scott Adkins) is the same, plus the odd prison warden or military boss in a very minor role. But the sound has been upped a level, as is noticeable from the outset – the atmosphere is much more like what you’d expect from a high budget, high quality action movie now.

Cast wise, Scott does well as always. Teodora Duhovnikova does an mediocre job as Alma, the lead female character – the struggling wife of the opponent Scott regrets killing.

Brahim Achabbakhe does an average job in the role of Igor Kazmir – the local champion who Boyka needs to defeat to set Alma free. Martyn Ford makes an epic appearance as The Nightmare – the wildcard extra final boss fighter. Alon Abutbul does a good job in his role as the local mafia boss called Zourab who Alma owes big money to. Other supporting cast members ranged from okay to pretty good.

The plot is about as good as Undisputed III, maybe better – hard to compare as they’re so different, it’s like apples & pears. The diversity of action here may be a bit better too, a bit less monotone. But the musical sound effects, and probably some other less obvious things that affect the mood, that only higher budget movies have, seem much more on point this time. The ending probably doesn’t trump the previous one, but it’s no less creative and well executed this time round.

Overall it’s a decent movie – still a bit gritty, cold and one dimensional like the others, but getting quite closer to the level of a top action hero movie now. I can’t imagine Scott can keep doing these fancy spinning high kicks much longer, he’s already getting close to 50 years of age, so we might never get an Undisputed 5, but he could tone down the fancy moves a bit and work with a more exotic plot perhaps.

Romeo Must Die (2000) – Jet Li

Jet Li in Romeo Must Die (2000)

This is one of Jet Li’s best movies in terms of having good supporting actors, great backing music and a seemingly decent production budget.

Although the plot is a bit thin, it’s ok – the action is frequent and the vibe is cool – intermittently exciting with good humour. A few slower scenes and the final fight scene drags on a bit, but otherwise it’s pretty fluid entertainment value.

Jet Li plays a Chinese kung fu expert called Han, who breaks out of jail upon hearing his brother is dead, to attend the funeral and find his killer.

It should be no surprise that the music is good, seeing how this movie has stars like DMX who plays a club owner called Silk, and Aaliyah who plays the lead female role called Trish. Both do a pretty good job in their respective roles here, and both of their music is played throughout, at very relevant times. Whoever selected the tunes and mixed them into the movie the way they did deserves some kind of award for it, especially the “Got Him” transition into the motorbike scene (can’t find the name of that tune anywhere) where Hilary Yip plays the Chinese woman who Jet Li’s character Han doesn’t want to hit.

Other decent performances include Russell Wong who plays the Chinese boss’s right hand man; Delroy Lindo who plays Isaak, Trish’s father, the head of the black people’s gang; Isaiah Washington who plays Mac, Isaak’s right hand man; and Anthony Anderson who nearly steals the show with his charismatic comedic touch as a low-level shot-caller working for Mac to help protect Trish.

Aaliyah and Jet Li in Romeo Must Die (2000)