Hey, remember Dennis Rodman? No? An NBA star for 15 minutes, he made his name partly through athleticism and far more through “outrageous” hair colors, various body piercings and dating Madonna.
The makers of Double Team believed Rodman’s brand would last eternal. How else to explain the plethora of basketball-related puns despite basketball having nothing to do with the story? Rodman shoves a gunman through a window and exclaims, “Two points!” The Rod throws another henchman through the air and yells, “Nothin’ but net!” There’s a bizarre parachute shaped like a basketball. What does it all mean? Nothing.
The galling thing is, there’s plenty of cheese on display to enjoy. A sometime-clever riff on The Prisoner, Double Team stars B-movie legend Jean-Claude Van Damme as a superspy abducted to a mysterious island where spies long considered dead work in solitude on world affairs. After nicely MacGyver-ing his way free, he tracks down Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2), the baddie who has insinuated his way into JCVD’s wife’s life.
So far, so good. Asian director Tsui Hark (the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy) never got a fair shake in Hollywood, but he brings flair and verve to admittedly ridiculous action scenes. Rourke was in a career death spiral at the time, but he at least hams it up amusingly.
JCVD is JCVD, meaning energetic-but-wooden acting and putting balletic fight moves on anyone in his path. Unlike fellow man-kicker Chuck Norris, Van Damme never forgets it’s his fighting skills that made him a star, not his talent at holding guns in his hands (although there’s a goodly amount of that as well, usually in tandem with a spiral death blow of some kind). There’s also an ending involving a coliseum, a minefield and a tiger that must be some kind of classic.
And there’s Rodman, the arms dealer named Yaz who aids JCVD. It is not a performance; it is simply putting a camera on him and hoping the audience will never forget he was once a shining star in the firmament. It is a sad reminder of one of our first reality stars, a ballplayer with ego far bigger than talent.
Double Team is goofy fun, but Rodman is a foul shot, a missed free throw. See, I can make sports puns, too. But in context. —Corey Redekop