The best source for action movies these days seems to come from the straight to dvd land of film making. It's a sad thing when the only big budget studio action flicks are about either Giant Robots beating the living shit out of each other and destroying everything in sight or about a gang of import car racers on the run from the FBI. Don't get me wrong I loved Fast 5, but the fact that it's on it's fifth film and only now is it bringing out the big guns, does one start to wonder if the studios ever had faith in it from the beginning. We have no action icons any more, we don't have a Lundgren, a Van Damme, a Seagal or a Schwarzenegger kicking ass in action epics. In fact Stallone has had to wheel out the old school bad asses for the Expendables films. But we need new icons to bring Action cinema back, Jason Statham can't make every action film however much he tries. So where are these people. In straight to DVD hell unfortunately. Which brings me to the film I am reviewing. The Van Damme actioner Assassination Games. One star who has yet to make it to the big screen of your local multi-plex (well ok, once but under a bucket load of make up for that Wolverine Movie) is Brit ass kicker, Scott Adkins, a phenomenal martial artist who, only now is he getting leads in films after a decade of bit parts and guest roles in crappy British tv shows. Thanks in part to Isaac Florentine's two Undisputed sequels where he played Russian fighter Yuri Boyka, is Adkins getting the recognition he deserves. Well here he plays second fiddle to Van Damme in Ernie Barbarash's Assassination Games. A lowish budgeted action film shot in Bucharest and New Orleans.
Adkins and Jean Claude Van Damme team up in this Euro lensed action flick as rival assassins vying for the death of a gangster. Van Damme as a professional and Adkins on a mission of revenge, they decide to work together to complete the hit with Interpol hot on the heels of Adkins.
That is pretty much the plot and it's a very tired plot that really doesn't add anything new to the genre, in fact the Wachowski brother and sister (?) already used that plot in their script for Stallone's Assassins back in '95. I can't say I didn't enjoy the film because there are moments of greatness in the action sequences but the whole thing has been done to death, I really expected something a little bit different. The reason for this is due to the news that this was getting a limited release into theatres in the U.S and I had this silly idea that this could be great, but it was mediocre at best.
Adkins is good although some of his acting skills in this are a little wooden and Van Damme is always a pleasure to watch on screen. You'd think that after the critical acclaim his film JCVD received he would try something a little different but no, he returned to what he does best, kicking ass in tired movies. I've been going through some JCVD flicks lately and can honestly say he was really good back in the day. Maximum Risk, Replicant, In Hell, Hard Target, The Quest, Sudden Death, Legionaire, this list goes on, all great fun movies, and while he still has what it takes to make those movies, he really just looks like he can't be arsed anymore in this one.
The villain is the usual cliché’s Eastern block mobster and again adds very little to an already mediocre film. He's played by a guy who looks like a cross between Ricky Gervais and John Rhys Davies playing Salah in Raiders Of The Lost Ark which was kind of off putting.
Another major problem with the film was the way it was filmed. The action sequences were good and well choreographed which is always a plus in these kind of films but the entire film was covered in this horrible, almost washed out Sepia tint that gave the film an very cheap look. This cannot be down to the budget because it was made for the same amount of money as The Tournament which utilised it's budget and made the film look like a twenty million dollar film instead of a $4mil movie.
Overall Assassination Games isn't a great film, it's woodenly acted at points due to a pretty bad script, It has that horrible yellow tint that makes it look more like a final year student film, it has clichéd characters and a very tired plot. If you're a fan of both Adkins and Van Damme then by all means watch it, if you're looking for a good old fashioned action film, then you should avoid this on. Instead check out either Wake Of Death or Until Death for some good old fashioned Van Damme action. Not a recommendation..
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