Verdict
Summary
MVD has just issued a 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray of Death Warrant, and the new restoration is sharp and clear, looking better than ever before. it comes with an audio commentary by the director, a poster, an interview with co-star Gibb, an interview with co-star Kilpatrick, an interview with co-star Art LaFleur,a trailer gallery, and a slipcover.
Plot:
An cop goes undercover at a prison to root out a serial killer and find out why inmates are disappearing.
Review:
An undercover French Canadian cop named Louis Burke (Jean-Claude Van Damme, slightly miscast) goes after the psycho killer known as The Sandman (Patrick Kilpatrick from Under Siege 2: Dark Territory) because he killed his partner. When he’s done what he set out to do, Burke is asked to go undercover at a hellhole penitentiary where inmates are “disappearing.” Set up with a bogus backstory and a new identity, Burke becomes an inmate at the prison, where of course he’s immediately attacked, tortured, and picked on for wanting to make friends with a black inmate (played by Robert Guillaume). Being a proficient martial artist and a silent-type badass, Burke makes plenty of enemies, but in the meantime his investigation leads him to a discovery that the warden and his guards are running an illegal organ donor transplant scheme, using the inmates as the “donors.” Burke, who has a very rare blood type, is the next “donor” on the list if he doesn’t solve his predicament in time. A wrench is thrown in his plans when The Sandman – who is basically an unmasked Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees because he simply won’t die – is brought into the prison as a prisoner and immediately sets his sights on brutalizing and humiliating Burke.
Van Damme’s second studio film in the same year (the other one was Lionheart for Universal), Death Warrant feels completely familiar, but obvious studio tampering and trimming truncate what might have been a slightly more interesting film. Van Damme, who looks great in the movie, has a hard time delivering his dialogue, and his understated performance is so subtle that you wonder how he was directed. Director Deran Sarafian (Gunmen, Terminal Velocity) doesn’t really go for much other than in-your-face outrageousness and ultra slick gloss. Not one of my favorite Van Damme movies, Death Warrant still has its fans and followers. Watch for veteran stuntman Al Leong in one scene. Written by David S. Goyer, who also wrote Kickboxer 2 and the Blade movies. Mark DiSalle (Kickboxer, The Perfect Weapon) produced it.
MVD has just issued a 4K Ultra HD / Blu-ray of Death Warrant, and the new restoration is sharp and clear, looking better than ever before. it comes with an audio commentary by the director, a poster, an interview with co-star Gibb, an interview with co-star Kilpatrick, an interview with co-star Art LaFleur,a trailer gallery, and a slipcover.