Skip to content
The Dominator reviews
Pioneer LDCE
- Cat.no: PLFEB 34681
- Cert: 18
- Running time: 111 minutes
- Sides: 2 (CLV)
- Year: 1995
- Pressing: UK, 1996
- Chapters: 47 (26/20+1)
- Sound: Dolby Surround
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- Price: £24.99
- Extras : Trailers for Casino, Strange Days, Waterworld, Apollo 13 on Chapter 47.
Director:
- Peter Hyams (2010, Timecop, Capricorn One)
Producers:
- Moshe Diamant and Howard Baldwin
Screenplay:
- Gene Quintano
Music:
- John Debney
Cast:
- Darren McCord : Jean-Claude Van Damme (Hard Target, Timecop, Maximum Risk)
Joshua Foss : Powers Boothe (Tombstone, Nixon, Blue Sky)
Vice President : Raymond J. Barry (Dead Man Walking, K2)
Hallmark : Dorian Harewood (Roots, Full Metal Jacket)
Sudden Deathreunites Timecop‘s star (Jean-Claude Van Damme) anddirector (Peter Hyams) for another slice of widescreen action, swappingtime travel for an ice hockey stadium, where Van Damme plays security guard,Darren McCord, who used to be a fireman until a tragic accident two years agoin which a little girl died.
The film takes place inside the Civic Arena on the day of the Stanley Cup finalgame where 17,000 fans have packed the stadium for the match between thePittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks. McCord has taken his twochildren to see the game, but the audience numbers have been increasedunknowingly as terrorists led by Joshua Foss have taken over the VIP box,holding a number of people hostage including the Mayor and the US VicePresident. All they want is money, but lots of it, and it has to be transferredin three equal parts during each of the first three periods of the game. Ifthis doesn’t happen…the hostages start dying one by one.
McCord is the one man who has to go behind the scenes, bump off the bad guys(and girls) he comes across, disarm the bombs rigged around the stadium setto go off at any time, and rescue his daughter who has also been taken hostagein the VIP box.
“Die Hard In an Ice Rink” ? Not quite. The synopsis sounds familiar,but it would take a lot to beat that film, and this one does go more for theaction-by-numbers approach, but it does have its moments as well as a superbfinale.
Van Damme does his usual one-man-against-the-world act, accompanied with slo-moexplosions, and well-handled action scenes which come fairly evenly, andsometimes are very amusing – witness the scene where he has to fight the team’smascot, a bad girl in a giant Penguin suit, in the kitchen area, which doeslead to a nasty end.
In any other hands, the film might have been serverly lacking as the conceptis hardly ground-breaking, but from an established director, Peter Hyams, whoalways makes good use of the Panavision frame, and an excellent chief bad guyin the form of Powers Boothe (why isn’t this guy in more roles such as this?),the film is brought up a notch from the ‘average’ slot.
On video this will become another fullscreen Friday night renter, but thelaserdisc brings out the full impact of Hyams cinematography. Picture qualityis fantastic: very colourful and sharp, and the surround sound mix comes intoplay many times during the film as the clock ticks by, and as the teams draweven, we reach the Sudden Death play-off.
This disc is well-chaptered with 46 spread throughout the 111 minutes of thefilm, plus one for the trailers at the end of the disc, which are for fourother Pioneer PAL LD releases : Casino, Strange Days, Waterworld,Apollo 13.
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1997.
Check outPioneer‘s Web site.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.