ASSASSINATION GAMES DVD (2011)
SYNOPSIS: Brazil (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a contract killer, willing to take any job if the price is right. Flint (Scott Adkins) left the assassin game when a ruthless drug dealer’s brutal attack left his wife in a coma. When a contract is put out on the cold-blooded drug dealer, both Brazil and Flint want him dead – one for the money, the other for revenge. With crooked Interpol agents and vicious members of the criminal underworld hot on their trail, these two assassins reluctantly join forces to quickly take out their target before they themselves are terminated.
MOVIE REVIEW:
We are still hoping that Jean-Claude Van Damme will one day return to the mainstream Hollywood arena. Remember he was a huge action star back in the eighties and nineties alongside Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Wilis.
With his acclaimed indie drama “JCVD” being a hit and a voice stint in “Kung Fu Panda 2”, “The Muscles from Brussels” seems to be slowly creeping back. But first the world of direct-to-video market still need his services which bring us back to his latest venture, “Assassination Games”.
“Assassination Games” in fact is a decent thriller before you brushed it off. It’s a huge improvement in terms of production values. No choppy edits, sparse sets or amateur cinematography. Okay the sepia-tone look is quite a turn off after a while otherwise the production is impressive for a low-budgeted title like this.
The story goes something like this: Van Damme plays an assassin for hire named Brazil. Encountering a fellow assassin, Flint (Scott Adkins) while on a mission to rid the assigned target, a drug dealer named Polo, Brazil realized that Flint has a personal vendetta against Polo and they must work together in order to survive killings by corrupted Interpol agents and Polo as well.
Those expecting “Assassination Games” to be a straight-out action thriller will be disappointed by the somewhat sluggish pacing, matter of fact this actually turns out to be a good thing on a drama perspective. The characters of both assassins are clearly fleshed out in the 100 minutes movie. Flint’s wife was gang-raped and bashed into a comatose by Polo and his gang years before which explains why Flint is bent on destroying him. Brazil on the other hand is one lonely assassin who has no one to live for and spends his time in his neat, cosy apartment with a turtle and learning to play the violin in his spare time. The last thing you expect is a prostitute to enlighten him. Director Ernie Barbarash who did mainly direct-to-video titles including Stir of Echoes 2 and Hardwired concoct a reasonable functional story of two entirely different men crossing paths and kicking ass.
The opening scene of Brazil carrying out his assassination is brutal and slick though we craved to see more of the man in action. Van Damme’s 2008 direct-to-video feature, The Shepherd: Border Patrol which is reviewed on this humble site has better action scenes though. Scott Adkins is a renowned martial-arts artiste but there’s little here for the man to showcase his fisticuffs skills as together with Van Damme, most of the action sequences involved using bow-and-arrow, knives and even an automatic-controlled gun in the end. Yet I wouldn’t totally write off Van Damme as clearly the guy still has some mileage to go, he even show off his well-toned torso just to prove his point.
Never mind the main villain is a typical caricature and worst he can’t even lift much of his fat finger to save his life. Even the corrupted Interpol agents are just an excuse to fill in more gunfights. “Assassination Games” is a fine character study on assassins but I guess audience prefer to see Van Damme kicked ass like he used to in John Woo’s Hard Target, Peter Hyams’ Timecop or even Tsui Hark’s cheesy Double Team.
The world of action cinema still need Jean-Claude Van Damme, come on, one bald Jason Statham just ain’t enough.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
None of the 8 Deleted Scenes feature any action sequences even Van Damme himself isn’t in most of them.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Dialogue is clear while gunshots are loud and heavy though there aren’t that many to satisfy your adrenalin. The DVD is free of dirt and most of the scenes are presented in sepia-tone, it's more of a production choice instead of a transfer issue.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
