My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 91 - Double Team (1997)

It’s been a while since I published a film in this list.  I’ve been on vacation, but now I’m back and will try to keep things pretty steady.  I wanted to get to around 80 or so before I stopped for Labor Day weekend but I wasn’t able to do so.  Life got in the way.  That said, I’m back to bring the terribleness.

Featuring what may be the most bizarre action duo in film history, Double Team is a special type of bad action movie.  Two leads, both terrible actors, dealing with already bad material, in a vanity project that is so over-the-top, even Michael Bay would’ve been overwhelmed by what was on display.  Double Team is an action film that exemplifies everything wrong with the genre, centering on characters and a plot that that is so silly that no person could call this a credible movie.

The plot involves a soldier (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who teams up with an weapons dealer (Dennis Rodman) to overthrow an international terrorist named Stavros (Mickey Rourke).  The film has every single possible setting that would be considered a joke in an SNL sketch about excessive action films.  They shoot it out everywhere including an amusement park, a maternity ward and a “retirement village” for dangerous assassins.  

Double Team is a dumb movie.  But it is so insanely flamboyant, filled with so many ridiculous set-pieces that it almost reaches “so bad it’s good” territory.  Still, Van Damme’s incomprehensible English and Rodman’s absurd acting slows this one down.  Still, the scene with the shoot out in the hospital is one of the most sadistic (and funny) scenes in any action film ever.