Alain Moreau is a cop in France who cannot believe his eyes when a murder victim is the spitting image of him. He confronts his mother and learns that she had had twins but had to give one of them up. Wanting to solve the murder of his estranged twin, Alain follows a trail that leads him to a New York that is cold and full of snow and finds himself sucked into his brother's world where he finds himself with his brother's beautiful girlfriend all over him. However Alain also inherits his brother's problems some of which include Russian gangsters who want to kill him.
This film wastes no time in getting the plot established and flying Alain into his first fight as quickly as possible and I can understand why this was the case. The plot is thin to say the least and it is best not to apply too much logic to any of it because the whole thing is an excuse for Van Damme to just do the things in this film that he does in all his films. This includes speaking in a strange accent, being naked with a beautiful female co-star and kicking people in lots of exciting ways. All these boxes are ticked here and as such it does what you would expect from a Van Damme film and it will depend on the individual viewer whether or not that gets you interested or sees you running the opposite direction. For me it is somewhere in the middle because I accept the bad and in return veg out in front of a dumb action movie. The plot gets no better and every time it needs to add story to create more action you can almost see it straining with the effort.
The action is mostly pretty good although it was a bit disappointing to see how Ringo Lam had toned down the style for his first American film; only here and there did the film get close to the mayhem in the action that he is known for. Van Damme is quite good though, for course he is a clunky actor and here he seems to have had his charisma filtered out but in the action sequences he is a marvel very athletic and impressive and his physical presence helps a lot. Henstridge takes care of the "co-star who will get her t1ts out" requirement of the film but other than that she could have been anyone. The Wire's Ben Victor is so-so and yet I found it ironic that he had his last big scene in a cooler full of dead pigs because he had spent so much of the rest of the film surrounded by big hams too Grenier in particular comes to mind.
Overall then this is a solid Van Damme film with all the plusses and minuses that one would expect. The plot is poor and the acting leaves a lot to desire but the action is fun even if I was hoping for more from Lam.
This film wastes no time in getting the plot established and flying Alain into his first fight as quickly as possible and I can understand why this was the case. The plot is thin to say the least and it is best not to apply too much logic to any of it because the whole thing is an excuse for Van Damme to just do the things in this film that he does in all his films. This includes speaking in a strange accent, being naked with a beautiful female co-star and kicking people in lots of exciting ways. All these boxes are ticked here and as such it does what you would expect from a Van Damme film and it will depend on the individual viewer whether or not that gets you interested or sees you running the opposite direction. For me it is somewhere in the middle because I accept the bad and in return veg out in front of a dumb action movie. The plot gets no better and every time it needs to add story to create more action you can almost see it straining with the effort.
The action is mostly pretty good although it was a bit disappointing to see how Ringo Lam had toned down the style for his first American film; only here and there did the film get close to the mayhem in the action that he is known for. Van Damme is quite good though, for course he is a clunky actor and here he seems to have had his charisma filtered out but in the action sequences he is a marvel very athletic and impressive and his physical presence helps a lot. Henstridge takes care of the "co-star who will get her t1ts out" requirement of the film but other than that she could have been anyone. The Wire's Ben Victor is so-so and yet I found it ironic that he had his last big scene in a cooler full of dead pigs because he had spent so much of the rest of the film surrounded by big hams too Grenier in particular comes to mind.
Overall then this is a solid Van Damme film with all the plusses and minuses that one would expect. The plot is poor and the acting leaves a lot to desire but the action is fun even if I was hoping for more from Lam.