ENEMIES CLOSER (2013) Dir: Peter Hyams

This reviewing bug has really caught me this year, we're in feb now and i've scored at least 6 reviews for the site, most have been action flicks because i'm on an diet of explosions and gunfire at the moment, anyway i checked out JCVD's latest, Enemies Closer. Check out my words after the jump....

Oh man, I tell you this is the most I've written for almost a year, but i'm gonna carry this shit on because i'm on a massive review kick at the moment, so i'm gonna bring you beautiful people a new review. Today we're looking at a new movie, that's right, no 80s or 90 here, this time we're looking at film from 2013, of course it's an action film, more specifically a Jean Claude Van Damme action film. Today I'm reviewing ENEMIES CLOSER. Enemies Closer is part of the After Dark Action Festival. Every year we get a series of about six action films, all part of this series, last year we had Dragon Eyes, El Gringo, Transit and Stash House. Well they were technically 2012 but i'm counting them as 2013 due to them getting DVD releases in the U.K last year.

Enemies Closer comes from the Hyams family. Peter Hyams on directing and cinematography duty and his son John on editing duty. If you are unaware of who these guys are, Peter Hyams is an American film maker famous for everything from 70s conspiracy flick Capricorn One, High Noon in space, Outland, 2010: The Year We Made Contact through to Sudden Death, Time Cop and Arnie horror actioner End OF Days. His son John is one of the best new action directors working at the moment with Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Kurbickian/Lynchian Action epic, Universal Soldier Day Of Reckoning on his resume along with the previously mentioned Dragon Eyes.

Enemies Closer is a more relaxed actioner than the previous Hyams action brand. The plot follows a group of criminals led by Jean Claude Van Damme, who seems to be getting a new lease of life as a pantomime villain these days, he's so incredibly cool as a villain. They're searching for a downed plane containing a shit load of pure Heroin. The plane has crashed just off the coats of a small island on the boarder of Canada and the U.S. They need the island ranger, a former U.S Marine diver to help them retrieve it, but, another man has come for the ranger, the brother of one of a soldier killed in action. He believes the ranger is responsible for the death of his brother and is there to kill him. What follows is a game of cat and mouse between the crims and the ranger who inevitably teams up with the man who came to kill him to take on Van Damme and his band of goons.

The biggest issue with Enemies Closer is how familiar the film is, it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. The plot is essentially Hard Rain but without the rain. What also doesn't work is the casting. The hero is played by the very unlikely Tom Everett Scott, a man not known for Action movies, but here he plays the former U.S Seal Diver turned Park ranger. He's pretty good in the roll too but his character, because of the casting, never really works, had it been someone who was a match for Van Damme it might have worked but Scott is like the average Joe, if the character was just an average Joe then I guess he would have been more believable but this guy is supposed to be a military trained soldier but he's actually kind of useless, had they played on the military background, as especially the Seal training, he would have known his surroundings, he would have been able to use them to his advantage but they don't look into this. I like Tom Everett Scott, He was excellent in the show Southland as a homicide detective and he was good in Tom Hank's film, That Thing You Do but as a former Seal Diver?....He was the wrong choice.

Orlando Bloom, that funny guy from Evolution, actually puts in a good straight performance as the brother of the fallen soldier, there to kill Scott, He seems much more physically capable and would have probably been a better choice for the lead. Now onto the man everyone will watch the film for, Mr Jean Claude Camille Francois Van Varenberg or JCVD. Van Damme is having serious fun in this flick playing the villain, a ginger haired, environmentalist, psycho who keeps talking about reducing our carbon footprint and how he hates guns, it's a little odd but it's still fun. There's one speech he gives about a turkey he had when he was young, he made friends with the turkey, he loved that god damn little bastard but something happens and we discover that he's always been a bit psychotic. Van Damme is really the only reason to watch this.

It's directed with a better eye than most action films and as a cinematographer Peter Hyams knows how to light a set or a scene and much of the film does take place in the dark but he lights the shots so it looks like we're able to see what's going on due to the light of the moon, the editing is good too but the fight scenes could have been shot better, they're not awful but when you consider the fight scenes in something like Ninja 2, this doesn't come anywhere near those.

All in all, Enemies Closer isn't a total wash-out, JCVD makes the film watchable and it does pass 90 minutes quite well as the film does move at a good pace but couple in some lackluster action scenes and some miscasting, Enemies Closer is a bit of a let down and not the kind of level of film making you'd expect from such a veteran film director like Hyams.