DOUBLE TEAM (1997)

If someone were to tell me that I’d be writing a defense of DOUBLE TEAM, I’d agree that tracks. So here I am, fulfilling the prophecy!

The scene: It’s 1997, and before Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Jack Quinn can utter a single one-liner, we’re informed that:

1) He’s an agent on his final mission and

2) It involves plutonium.

After a fast, satisfying, and explosive stunt vehicle bonanza, we flash forward three years to an idyllic location that hums with the tension that only a short-lived paradise in the opening of an action movie can have. Playfully fighting with his pregnant wife (who’s wearing white, natch) and dripping in crystal clear South of France pool water, we speed run through a conversation between Jack (“How did you find me? You know I’m retired”) with a rude American who we assume is a former boss or somesuch. (“You know you missed the game. You’re a hunter and sunsets are boring. No one with thighs like yours can possibly retire young.”) The dialogue is so rote and predictable that it sounds like the movie is playing them from a pre-recorded “All-Star Action Movie Lines!” toy just off camera.

But we endure. We endure because we love JCVD and also because we know that Dennis Rodman is coming, and he has neon-colored hair on the poster, and that’s a promise of entertainment that one does not make, nor take, lightly.

There’s no child on God’s green Earth who can claim innocence about this movie’s intentions after the 6-minute mark. If you’re in once Mickey Rourke—as the golden-named Stavros—gives his villain speech and blows up a car he’s slow-motion-walking away from, then you’ve contractually agreed to soak your brain in Mountain Dew for the next 93 minutes.

So of course Jack Quinn gets pulled back into the “game” as he’s the only one who “understands” Stavros, and that brings us to Rodman as arms dealer/CIA operative Yaz and his rad secret room full of ridiculous weapons and sexy and silent assistants. No doubt, Rodman has natural charisma, but he was absolutely a stunt hire, and his stilted delivery and lack of engagement in his eyes show that this was not a frustrated actor trapped in a basketball superstar’s body.

Still, whether he’s awkwardly sparring with a patient-but-not-fully-engaged Van Damme, or wearing fetish gear and showing off weapons of mass-ish destruction, each scene graced with Rodman’s presence carries a fun, awkward energy. He’s a True Character in this film, one you can’t imagine living outside of the film’s reality, and Yaz being so unique is a delicious addition to an otherwise sensibly fashioned, traditionally masculine film. This guy was born fully formed in a European techno sex club as both a cartoon character and a CIA agent, and I find it impossible to believe that anyone would want to miss out on that.

While paparazzi-magnet Rodman got most of the press at the time of the film’s release, he’s actually largely absent from DOUBLE TEAM’s second act, where Van Damme enjoys briefings and homemade training sequences, one involving a bathtub that’s as accidentally pornographic as it is on-purpose over-the-top. Once Yaz does show up again, he delivers. Rodman had a lot of fun playing around with the mainstream perception of sexuality and gender norms whenever he was in the public sphere, and he brings that here, and it’s still some of the freshest material in the film. He’s never mocked for his flamboyance by the other characters: Rodman plays it straight (so to speak), and the movie never fails to let us know that This is the Cool Guy Who Likes Trouble and Gets Lots of Tail. He also has excellent and expensive-looking hair dye changes in every single sequence, and I love thinking about the budget meetings that had to create.

Mickey Rourke as Stavros is another showstopper, who’s incomprehensibly described by Van Damme’s character as  “... like a snake. If you look into his eyes, he’ll get you in the back.” This is a guy who makes the most of a showdown in a packed carnival (including a reveal of a child that’s worthy of a Little Rascals sketch), and this performance was one of the brighter spots during the rockier period of Rourke’s acting career. He was confident and seemed to have a good time, and his few scenes of fatherly heartbreak are effective.

Still, Van Damme as our traditional hero shouldn’t be overlooked. While he’s the straight man to both a strong villain with a real reason for his need for vengeance and a rainbow-coated partner, both his natural, affable charm and insane physique and skills never fail to remind us why he’s the movie star. Even though Van Damme, Rourke, and Rodman had their well-publicized times of superstardom, they all had more than their fair share of being shit on by the press as well, and they seem oddly united even though the script doesn’t hint at any such connection.

DOUBLE TEAM arrived with the energy of talented men with something to prove: A celebrated Hong Kong director (Tsui Hark, PEKING OPERA BLUES (1986), producer of all and director of four of the ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA films) making his first foray into Hollywood; a sex icon action star approaching 40; an NBA player with a controversial pop culture presence fronting a mainstream Hollywood motion picture, and an actor rebuilding a promising career after an ill-advised foray into boxing. On paper, DOUBLE TEAM was a failure as it was largely critically panned and only just made its money back. Hark and Van Damme would double team up again with KNOCK OFF the following year, which was equally as charming and ridiculous and derided. Well, slightly less charming as they traded in Rodman for Rob Schneider.

It’s really hard for me to see DOUBLE TEAM as a failure, though.

There’s a common belief among jerks that all action films are dumb and lack deep emotion. Most of us thinking folk know how reductive and wrong that is, and from DIE HARD to HARD BOILED and far beyond, action is often the engine behind well-written and -acted vehicles for relatable human stories enduring the stress of impossibly big circumstances. They’re deeply fun and cathartic when done right. Much like horror, it’s a genre where you often can have your cake and eat it too: Pathos and exploding bodies can and do co-exist, and I’d like everyone to fucking acknowledge it.

Fair enough, DOUBLE TEAM is not one of those movies. However, neither is it one of those empty, filler-ridden rush jobs that were designed to make quick money on the shelves of suburban Hollywood Videos. There’s truly not a dull moment in DOUBLE TEAM: Even the longer dialogue/plot dump scenes find ways to work in mysterious strong men, fascinating European accents, and holograms. The legendary Sammo Hung was brought in as the Special Action Choreographer. It’s glossy, luxuriates in beautiful, dusk-dusted locales, and is stuffed full of fascinating camera movements. Cinematographer Peter Pau (1989’s THE KILLER, 2000’s CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) treated this movie like it was a sentient candy buffet, and the quick cuts and inventive camera angles keep us locked in even when the story isn’t overly concerned with the audience’s engagement. I’m certainly not going to be the one to complain about getting dozens of different angles of Van Damme’s calves as he climbs up and does aerobics on a doorframe. And if you find time to work in a sequence that has him kicking skydivers off a plane into your motion picture, I’ll find time for you.

While DOUBLE TEAM is certainly not a “good” film, it’s a genuinely fun film, and it has a cheerful kind of audaciousness that makes it hopelessly appealing. Tsui Hark’s maiden voyage in Hollywood knew that no one in the audience paid for a bad time or a slow time: They wanted bigger-than-life personalities, fun set-pieces, pseudo-futuristic weapons, a high body count, and a track called “Just A Freak” by Crystal Waters with special guest Dennis Rodman to wrap it all up. Check, check, check, check, goose.