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"Scratch my back with a hacksaw!" Maybe JCVD's best film.

Sudden Death starts as ex-firefighter Darren McCord (Jean-Claude Van Damme) picks up his two young children Emily (Whittni Wright) & Tyler (Ross Malinger) from his ex-wife Kathi (Kate McNeil) to take them to the Civic Arena to watch the National Ice Hockey League's seventh & final game of the Stanley Cup between the Pittsburgh Penguins & the Chicago Hawks. As Face-Off approaches ex-CIA agent Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe) & his team of mercenaries storm the owner's box overlooking the game & take the Vice President (Raymond J. Barry) hostage. Foss demands that the Government pay him millions of dollars or he will execute his hostages one by one & eventually blow the arena up & everyone inside. By chance McCord discovers what has happened & takes it upon himself to stop Foss & prevent him killing the Vice President, thousands of innocent spectators & his children...Directed by Peter Hymas who was also the director of photography one has to say Sudden Death is one of my favourite action flicks from the 90's. You know I have always liked JCVD & think he's made some great films, yes that's right I just said I think JCVD has made some great films since I truly believe that. He isn't the greatest actor of all time but he does at least try, he has always kept himself in shape & certainly makes for a plausible action hero & most of his films have something about them. From his early low budget roots in Bloodsport (1988) & Kickboxer (1989) which were fun films to his big budget Hollywood hey day with entertaining films like Universal Soldier (1992), Hard Target (1993) & Timecop (1994) to his more recent output like the interesting Replicant (2001) & In Hell (2003) which deserved more than to go straight to video. For my money Sudden Death ties with Hard Target as JCVD's best film, sure it's an unashamed Die Hard (1988) rip-off but if you can get over that & take it for what it is it's great action packed entertainment all the way. The script by Gene Quintano could have easily been made as a Die Hard film & not looked out of place, there's the cold hearted bad guy, there's the plan to take control of some location & cut it off from the outside world, there's the lone ranger style hero who has to do it all on his own against the odds while his family get caught up in the situation which makes things personal for him, there's enough dead bodies to fill a graveyard, there's plenty of shoot-outs, fights, gratuitous violence, one liners (I love the one by Boothe who when trying to select a hostage to kill says 'you all agree the Mayor's wife has been the most annoying' after she started crying), plenty of explosions & a few plot twists as well. It's all here, it really is. It moves along at a good pace, your never more than a few minutes away from the next action set-piece, the character's are good, the dialogue fine & the plot sound. There's nothing ground breaking in Sudden Death, it is what it is, an action packed 100 odd minutes & to me a near prefect action packed 100 odd minutes.Director Hyams turns in a really good film with plenty of style, some of the aerial shots of the Civic Arena are great & have real scope & a sense of scale when the film is viewed in it's proper 2:35:1 widescreen ratio & his camera is always moving looking for nice angles. The action is often spectacular, from fights on top of the Arena to explosions to rocket launchers to shoot-outs to fights to death defying leaps to helicopter crashes. McCord also turns into McGuyver on a few occasions as he fixes up some home made weapons including bombs & a DIY gun that shoots nails. I loved the commentators as well as we keep cutting back to them & their over enthusiastic comments like 'I don't care if your packing heat you couldn't get in here tonight'! Living in the UK I know next to nothing about Ice Hockey so I really don't know if Sudden Death is an accurate representation of the rules & the sport in general terms although I don't see why it wouldn't be. The film is very violent in places with head-buts, punches, kicks, all manner of items used as makeshift weapons, a huge body count, people are set on fire, shot & stabbed amongst other things.With a supposed budget of about $35,000,000 Sudden Death had a decent budget but it's not up there with the hundred million plus Hollywood blockbusters is it? The film is very well made with high production values, top notch stunt work & good special effects. Shot mainly on location in Pittsburgh. The acting is fine with JCVD phoning in his performance & only turning up to the set to do the stunt work, Boothe makes for a great villain while even the two kids aren't that annoying.Sudden Death is one of my favourite 90's action films, it's action packed with a wide variety of over the top action scenes, it has a great villain & a suitably silly plot that you can't take too seriously. What more do you want?

Van Damme Becomes A Security Guard

'Sudden Death' isn't a bad film at all, in fact, it is probably one of Van Damme's last good films, the action is good, the story is not bad, and the acting from people such as Powers Boothe, Dorian Harewood and Raymond J. Berry isn't that bad either. The film is about Darren McCord (Van Damme), a former fireman who destroyed his reputation when he failed to save a young girl from a house fire. The film then jump-cuts to the 7th game of the Stanley Cup final in Pittsburgh where the Pittsburg Penguins are playing the Chicago Blackhawks. Now a security guard, McCord discovers that the arena's audience are being held hostage by a group of US pseudo-militants led by a man named Joshua Foss (Boothe), a former government hack, an ex-CIA agent, who makes a personal effort to capture the Vice President, who is also at the game. Foss' demands are that the money he asks for be electronically-wired to his account after each period of the game, and if he doesn't get his money, he will execute one of the Vice Presiden't party. McCord discovers that the arena is wired with explosives, explosives which Foss intends to detonate at the end of the game with over 17,000 people in attendance. McCord plots to stop the bombs from going off but to also send the game into over-time so that he can get more time.I've only watched this film once and basically used the back-cover of a DVD I found on some website to give the synopsis of this film as I can't really remember it. What I can remember, though, is that the film was quite good, with some really good action set-pieces that seemed a little unbelievable but good all the same. Maybe it's a testament to Van Damme that one can be in a film with this trait, that I can remember it slightly just after watching it once, and certain parts of it. Maybe not, maybe it's a terrible film, maybe it's absolutely horrendous, but I don't think so.Peter Hyams - Peter Hymans isn't a particularly great film director, 'Timecop' was not bad, but '2010' was never a sequel to '2001: A Space Odyssey', and I hate it whenever people say that it is. The guy has a good eye for detail and he likes to cross his t's and dot his i's, but he is not exactly the greatest director around. Recently, all he has done is make a bunch of action films and pseudo-meaningful films that have some deeper roots ('End of Days' - a good film gone sour by Arnold Schwarzenegger). For a film like this, I would have relied on somebody more astute to the Action genre, maybe somebody like John McTiernan, but I feel that if he directed it, the film would have been seen as nothing more than a rip-off of 'Die Hard'. That said, Peter Hyams did manage to make a 'not bad' film with 'Sudden Death'. The set-pieces were good, as I said, the acting was not bad at all, and the writing was written quite well, especially for an action film starring Van Damme.

Sudden Death

I first saw the French action star in Universal Soldier, and the review for this film said this was his best action thriller film, so I thought why not? Basically Darren McCord (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a disgraced firefighter, he stopped when a girl he tried to rescue died in his arms. Anyway he has moved on, has two kids, daughter Emily (Whittni Wright) and son Tyler (Ross Malinger), and has taken them to see a Pittsburgh Penguins National Hockey League play-off ice hockey game, unaware that upstairs the Vice President (Raymond J. Barry) and a few others are being held hostage by money hungry Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe) and his thugs. Soon enough Darren realises the situation when the bad guys start showing up and trying to kill him, and he knows he must save the V.P., as well as his daughter. Also starring Dorian Harewood as Hallmark. Van Damme is certainly better in this than the very slightly silly Universal Soldier, and it is certainly a film not just for his fans, but for all action film fans. Very good!

Powers Gives Boost To Film

I found this to be a very interesting action with with Powers Boothe fun to watch as the main villain, thanks to his dialog and no-nonsense approach. At least he wasn't one of those talk-first, shoot-maybe-later clichés from the world of film. The hockey scenes in here are realistic, too. However, the rest of the film doesn't exactly exhibit realism: lots of hokey stuff in here, too. At the end, the action really gets carried away and brings the rating down on this to a manageable "7." Otherwise, it would be a minimum of "8" just for the entertainment value alone.After a slow start, it picks up when Boothe enters the movie. Then it never lets up. If you want a pure hour of action, this is it. There is no female lead in this movie, so you get no romance nor gratuitous sex scenes, which is a bit unusual. It's a straight crime story.One note: unless things have been changed, I was disappointed my DVD did not offer a widescreen version.

Been done before, but who really gives a ?

I've seen the plot before: there's a bomb threat to a building. One man feels that he has to save the day. There are some government people who feel they've been shafted, so they betray the government and a few people, including government authorities, are taken hostage.Jean Claude Van Damme packs a high powered punch and a lot of kicks as Darren McCord, a father of two and a fire marshall. He takes his kids to the last game of the NHL season, the Stanley Cup Final. Things go wrong at the game, and you guessed it: Van Damme saves the day.A pretty good action flick, and Van Damme can play hockey too! Look for a cameo by a French Canadian hockey player playing himself.

A well-made action movie

Sure, it's no way a high art, but it's a well-done and slick wham-bang action movie, always predictable, but nevertheless enjoyable thrill ride. By-the-numbers plot, though nicely executed action scenes. Yes, the whole van-Damme-being-a-goalie subplot is on the verge of parody and should've been left out. Still, what's worth of paying attention to is the fact that all the stunts are practical, except few blue-screen manipulations. That's all that action junkies need.Plus, a good cast. I thought Powers Boothe was effective and menacing enough to pull off the villain's role. And good old Jean Claude was at the top of his game, proving he's a capable action star. Too bad that he's making some B-movie rubbish, because obviously van Damme could've been more than he's become.So, if good action is all you need, you might want to give "Sudden Death" a chance. A good and overall engaging action movie from Peter Hyams, director of "Timecop" and "End of Days", also good even though underrated action films.

Who's the REAL hero?

Powers Boothe storms into the Pittsburgh Civic Arena and threatens to blow the place up. SO WHAT? Who hasn't at least thought of doing that themselves once or twice?? Being a huge NON-Penguins fan, I was so rooting for the bad guy. Unfortunately, he was just way too snarlingly evil, even for me. The dialogue sounded like it was written straight out of the Movie Cliche Handbook. That little girl needed to be slapped - HARD. The hackneyed fight in the kitchen (hand in the fryer, face on the stove, arm in the meat grinder, etc, etc...) was really funny, but more of a sad funny. The fact that Jean-Claude, the loser fireman was not only a martial arts expert, but an EXPLOSIVES expert was just way too out there. And Boothe's little fake out with the bomb detinator that was really a lighter was just going too dang far for a dumb joke. The only fun was Luc Robitaille swearing in French...oh, and Mike Lange almost getting roasted in the press box (:::EVIL LAUGH:::)...

A Good Movie

Sudden Death was a good action film. The plot was simple and easy to understand..It didnt try to become something it isnt and end up confusing you. Jean-Claude Van Damme gave a strong performance and so did Powers Boothe. He was extremely convincing as "the bad guy". The movie at times is a little far fetched..but most movies are. I also thought it was very cool how Jean-Claude's character used lots of odd objects to create weapons(Fire extinguisher, tube and darts)..anyway if your looking for a good action movie to watch, Sudden Death should be your choice.

[4.5] a creative and exciting, highly underrated van damme film

I am not sure why I hear a lot of bad comments about this Van Damme film. Sudden Death is one of many "Die Hard" remakes, but this is the most exciting one I have seen, all taking place in the Pittsburgh hockey arena during game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. The action and suspense are teriffic, and Van Damme does a fine all-around performance (for Van Damme). The movie is quickly paced and something is always happening. Though acting and visual effects may be poor at times, this is not a film to be watching for a wonderful hollywood drama. This is pure Van Damme excitment for some no-brain kick-butt action. I give 4.5 stars, not because this is one of the best movies ever made, but it is one of the most exciting Van Damme movies that is must see fun.

Van Damme is "Darren", a sort-of fire rescue man who brings his daughter and son to the hockey game. Before the game begins, preparations are already unfolding for a new terror plot. The Vice President is on his way to the game to view the action live, and the terrorists are ready to take action once he takes his position in the owner's vip room. Naturally, the man in charge (Joshua Foss, played by Powers Boothe) wants money, and if he doesn't get it, he kills one hostage in the room after each period of the game expires. If the money is not in his account, the entire arena is rigged to blow at the conclusion of the game.


Enter Van Damme, who plays hero, but does an exciting job of it. He gets in plenty of fights throughout the interior of the arena and on the rooftop as well. My favorite is with one of the terrorist women, who is disguised in the Penguin's mascot outfit. Its kinda silly that he is fighting a mascot, but the kitchen they fight in gets torn up real good. There is also a pretty good fight in the weight room later on.

One of the most exciting things about the film is that it is all taking place during a hockey game. The game itself is fun to watch, as we get dozens of clips throughout the movie. At one point, in an attempt to avoid some of the terrorists, Van Damme enters the game as the Penguin's goalee, though no one realizes it. He is forced to play a few minutes of the game, and it was pretty fun to see.

Again, 4.5 for a great Van Damme film. Do check this one out, as it is a roller coaster that never stops. Though the ending is predicatble, its fun to see how we get there.

Let's play hockey!

I've never been a big fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme, and as of last night, had never watched a film of his before. Although I did feel like watching Street Fighter a few years back, but I was really into Kylie Minogue at the time. And I was young. That's an excuse right?

I was ended up pleasantly surprised by his acting - for some reason, I'd got it into my head that he's not that good an actor. OK, he was alright, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go rushing out to buy all his films.

There's nothing new about this film, but it'll grab your attention the whole time it's on the screen. It's a clone of many other movies, and and it itself, has probably been cloned over the years. What's terrific is the build up to the finale. It's one of those movies, where just when you think surely it's finished now, it brings out another twist, or another explosion, and you're swept along.

There's a few silly moments included in the film - Van Damme fighting a woman in a penguin suit for example, it's so funny to see and must have been embarrassing to film! :) But it ended up with the woman in the penguin suit someone that could be easily killed off and no one worries about her.

Three quarters of the way through the movie Van Damme decides to take a quick break from all the hard work - and play some hockey! At first I totally did not realise it was Van Damme, for some reason, I thought it was one of the bad guys. It wasn't until the over done "I love you" moment, that I realised who it was.

Unfortunately, Van Damme is far overshadowed by bigger, better action heroes, despite his best attempts at an impression of Bruce Willis throughout. Arnie & Sly obviously have the bigger muscles, and dare I say it, Mr Seagull has the overall size. Who would win in a punch up?

What I was most looking forward to about this was seeing little Ross Malinger again, who I best knew from Sleepless In Seattle. He doesn't play a different character, or look any older (who else wanted him to stand up & shout out "I preferred my daddy in Sleepless In Seattle!")

Overall, it's a pretty good action movie, doesn't test the braincells too much, and is pretty good fun.

Sudden Death Looks Good Right Now

This was definitely not the best movie I've ever seen. The truth
is that it's bad. So bad that I could hardly watch it. I got this
movie because it involved hockey, and I'm a huge fan. It was not
worth it- maybe, just maybe for action fans. But not for an average
watcher...the action was really cheesy for my taste...and only
a few lines grabbed my interest. I know action movies don't
have to be Oscar worthy...but this was a far cry from anything
cinematic. Don't waste your time.

Passable "Die Hard" clone, as far as things go.

The Story: A group of terrorists led by ex-CIA agent Joshua Foss take over the owner's box in Pittsburgh Stadium during the Stanley Cup finals. Darren McCord, an ex-fireman whose daughter is one of the hostages, must defuse the bombs hidden around the stadium & rescue the hostages without outside help.Ever since "Die Hard" came out in 1988, there has been a steady stream of action films copying the basic setup, with a group of criminals posing as terrorists being foiled by anything from an off-duty cop to an ex-football player. "Sudden Death" is a rather passable "Die Hard" clone. It goes through the motions without offering anything new for the fans, unless you happen to be a hockey fan, in which you won't be disappointed because the film shows a fairly good game during the course of the film. There's even a scene where star Jean-Claude Van Damme escapes from the bad guys by pretending to be a hockey player, only to be sent out into the ice & actually save a goal. The action sequences range from the good – there is a highly amusing fight between Van Damme & a female terrorist dressed up as a penguin set in a kitchen, utilising everything from a deep fryer to a jar of paprika as weapons – the passable – Van Damme breaking into the owner's box by swinging across the stadium ceiling – to the downright silly – the climactic helicopter crash. On the acting front, Van Damme turns in a robotic performance while Powers Boothe does his best "Hans Gruber" impression. Director Peter Hyams does a good job as always, keeping everything going at a decent pace. The only problem is the turncoat Secret Service agent. The film starts with him not even knowing Foss, yet later they are plotting together. Obviously there is a hole in the script.

Alright kids, you stay here while I go and save the 20,000 people in this stadium ok. And I have to save the vice president too

And then he goes and plays hockey!


Overall I have to say that this flick was one of the stupidest movies ever but the production values are high and the acting is pretty good. Very unusual for a Jean Claude movie. I even remember some classic lines from the hockey announcer. I wouldn't rate this as one of Damme's better movies, but then again, it is really not far off. All in all, this was a fun movie, if you are not over the age of 13.

SUDDEN DEATH review!

Pretty good DIE HARD rip-off has fire marshall Van Damme trying to save his kids and the Vice President from a rouge Secret Service agent who is planning on blowing up the seventh game of the Stanley Cup.

The plot is that simple. There really isn't much going on besides that so if you didn't like similiar moves than there probably isn't a whole lot here for you.

hold on!

This is typical Van Damme fare. Just sit back and enjoy the ride!I found this film to be very exciting, with continuous action, fight scenes, suspenseful atmosphere, killings, and other stuff associated with this genre. Like I said, typical VD fare.I liked the action. If you can suspend disbelief (hey, it IS an action movie!) and like action films, you might like this one.** 1/2 out of ****

Icy terrorist-hostage game

Maybe the match between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks just didn't seem to have enough action at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh on ESPN, Jean Claude Van Damne plays a fire inspector who attends a Stanley Cup game when he encounters the terrorist who takes the vice-president hostage. His kids are also held hostage. He has until the end of regulation time before the terrorist bombs the arena with 16,000 screaming fans (not in panic but cheering on the Pens) for the Stanley Cup. Maybe next year, a senator will be kidnapped and held hostage at the Avalanche-Panthers finals.

They didn't count on the light bulb-changer...

Perhaps the clearest sign that Hollywood has abandoned all pretence of being the creative hub of the film world so that its residents can focus all their energies on the pursuit of filthy lucre is given by the proliferation of cheap rip-offs that follow any commercially successful film these days. Die Hard was a superb film, the best of its kind before or since, but every wannabe potboiler that has followed in its wake, hoping to make a buck on the coat-tails of the film to which it doesn't even try to aspire (and even when, as here, the coat-tails are five years old and very tattered and frayed) has emphasised the paucity (or stifling) of creative talent working in the world's movie capital.Sudden Death is a fairly worthless dud that knows exactly what it is and makes no effort to disguise the fact. The makers know the multiplex crowd would rather feel the bass in the speakers vibrating around the theatre with each explosion than be exposed to any level of exposition that might lead to a little more depth to the characters; they know they would rather see their muscle-bound hero fighting a seven-foot penguin in a deserted kitchen than displaying even the merest hint of acting ability; they know the easiest way to put their target audience through the emotional wringer is to place the son/daughter in the hands of the nasty man with the bomb and have him say nasty things to her; they know that the same audience will miss completely the giveaway clues as to how the plot will be foiled because they stare at the screen but they never really watch what's going on…Powers Boothe plays Alan Rickman – sorry: Joshua Foss – a former Secret Service Agent who turns bad for no given reason and decides to hold a stadium to ransom during the course of a ice hockey match. By the end of each third of the match a given amount of money must be transferred to the accounts of some friendly overseas governments or else people are going to die. One of the hostages is the US Vice-President, who is stoic and brave and therefore completely unbelievable. Boothe is good in the role of suave madman; he looks like he's enjoying himself. Van Damme plays Maclane – sorry, McCord – chief light bulb changer at the doomed stadium, who used to be a fireman but who gave it up when he accidentally smothered a little girl he was trying to save. Or something. It doesn't really matter – all that tiresome background stuff is pretty much forgotten once the bad guys infiltrate the VP's executive lounge against less resistance than that encountered by a bunch of jocks on a raid on a girls' dorm. Nobody notices the bombs the bad guys have planted at various strategic positions around the stadium, but then nobody in the place notices dozens of cars exploding in the car park either, or a ringer on the pitch, or dead bodies lying in cubicles and hanging from the back of doors….This really is pretty bad film-making; the direction's about par for this kind of flick – which isn't really that much of an achievement when you think about it – but the writing is just lazy and derivative, which really is the biggest of sins. Let's face it: if this is the best you can come up with when the template you're working from is a film like Die Hard, you're obviously in the wrong game. Mind you, the writer of this was also responsible for Police Academies 3 & 4 which at least explains all the laughs this film provides – it's just a shame they're all unintentional.

Puh-leeze!!!

Jean-Claude Van Damme as a Pittsburgh fireman -- Puh--leeze!! I guess to the Left Coast one accent sounds much like another. But, producer Howard Baldwin (noted snake-oil salesman) was part-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins at that time and he should have known better. Much like the "Die-Hard" series, you must check your sense of believability at the theater door, although I do applaud the creativity of crashing a helicopter inside the Civic (now Mellon) Arena in Pittsburgh. As a Pittsburgh resident, I liked the location footage and was particularly impressed by Powers Boothe (a vastly underrated performer) as the sinister terrorist.

This is Hockey!

The Stanley Cup is just about to happen in Pittsburgh, but a homicidal maniac rigs the arena full of explosives. He wants bank accounts to be put under his name or he will assassinate the Vice President. Only one man can stop him from fulfilling his greedy plans and that is the lord Van Damme! "Sudden Death" plays like "Die Hard" and "Under Siege," two tour de forces. Van Damme is a fire investigator who also fights. Of course. Unfortunately for him, he has two children who are snotty brats! Dire. When his daughter is kidnapped by a manly mascot, it's up to Van Damme to save her, the Vice President and the Penguins fans! He fights a mascot in a kitchen, guys all around the arena, diffuses bombs and saves the day. Luckily for him, the game went to sudden death which allowed him more time. Powers Boothe plays the deranged looney and Van Damme teaches him a lesson. Don't waste good food and don't be selfish! The helicopter the demon was in fell through the arena vertically and exploded with a vengeance! Hamanee times does a mortal have to mess with Van Damme? They should know better.

Entertaining action thriller with a good if familiar premise has (sadly) a few unintentional laughs.

A fireman (Jean-Claude Van Damme) with a troubled past brings his two children (Whittini Wright and Ross Malinger) to watch the final Hockey game of the "Pittsburgh Penguins" versus the "Chicago Blackhawks" for the Stanley Cup. But his daughter and the vice president of the united states (Raymond J. Barry) is being taken hostage by terrorists. Which the lead terrorist (Powers Boothe) is demanding delivery of a billion dollars from the U.S. Treasury by game's end. Since there's about 17,000 rabid Hockey fans inside the civic arena enjoy the final Hockey game. The terrorists have been planning bombs, if their plans don't go right.Directed by Peter Hymas (A Sound of Thunder, 2010:The Year We Make Contact, Timecop) made an entertaining action thriller with flashes of unintentional humour. Boothe is too good of a villain in the film and Van Damme has some of the most funniest unintentional action scenes ever to put in a movie like this. But the film isn't terrible and while it doesn't break on any new grounds but it's still enjoying for right and wrong reasons at the same time. Since the premise of Karen Baldwin is familiar but interesting. The film really needed an sharper, conventional script. But for a Guilty Pleasure, it is quite amusing. Screenplay by Gene Quintano (The Musketeer, National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1, Operation Dumbo Drop). Panavision. (*** ½/*****).