Essential
Summary
Sudden Death is a classic action movie and one of my personal favourites from Van Damme. Powers Boothe steals the show as the hateful Joshua Foss and there is enough tension and action to make this one of the better Die Hard clones. I wish there were more new features for this 4K release but the commentary from Ross Boyask and Mike Leeder is entertaining and informative making this still worth adding to the collection.
Plot: Action superstar Jean-Claude Van Damme (Hard Target) teams with Powers Boothe (The Emerald Forest) in a tension-packed suspense thriller from Peter Hyams, the director of Running Scared, Narrow Margin and Timecop. Inside the Civic Arena, 17,000 rabid hockey fans gather for the Stanley Cup final game—including the Vice President of the United States. What they don’t know is that someone is planning to have the building, and its inhabitants, blown to bits! Van Damme portrays Darren McCord, a father who brings his two children to watch the Pittsburgh Penguins versus the Chicago Blackhawks. But when his daughter is suddenly taken hostage by terrorists, their special night out turns into a deadly race against time. Her sinister captor (Boothe) is demanding delivery of a billion dollars from the U.S. Treasury by game’s end. With thousands of lives at stake, the legendary “Muscles from Brussels” frantically sets a plan in motion to rescue his daughter and abort the impending explosion…before the final buzzer!
Review: I just received the new 4k of Sudden Death from Kino Lorber and to this day it remains one of my all-time favourite JCVD movies. Directed by Peter Hyams (Time Cop), the pacing, tension and action scenes are all expertly crafted. It sets everything up in the first 20 minutes with JCVD’s fireman Darren McCord feeling responsible for the death of a little girl in the opening scene; fast forward to two years later and Darren is a broken man, now working security at the Stanley Cup. He is estranged from his wife and kids and they have lost respect for him as a father due to him losing his way after the tragedy. To try and reconnect with his kids, he gets tickets to the Stanley Cup so they can try to get to know each other again.
The day does not go as planned as a group of terrorists take over the stadium and hold the Vice President (Raymond J. Barry) hostage. The villain Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe) is as ruthless as they come executing hostages until he gets billions of dollars from the government.
This is essentially a Die Hard clone, but it’s one of the very best as it’s filled with nail-biting tension, regular fight scenes, shoot-outs and explosions. Van Damme’s character Darren isn’t a martial artist but just a regular guy, so the fight scenes are more like street fighting with no fancy kicks. The highlight is obviously the fight between Darren and someone in a penguin mascot outfit which feels like a parody. Interestingly, the film was initially written to be a parody of the genre which I didn’t know until Ross Boyask brought it up on the entertaining commentary with he and Mike Leeder. I like that the film is more serious aside from that scene and there are some good violent kills too; the chicken bone in the neck will definitely sting.
Joshua Foss is my favourite Powers Boothe character; he is such a monster with no redeeming qualities. He sneers smugly as he mocks people he’s about to kill which just makes us hate him even more. I like how he isn’t a big brawler guy but he uses his intellect to be one step ahead of the police. Even all the henchmen in this are so hateful that they all deserve horrible deaths.
The real standout in Sudden Death is John Debney’s adrenaline-fuelled score; it would be nothing without the music really ramping up the tension and helping to add the race against time element.
The new 4K from Kino Lorber is a must-have as the film really looks sharper than ever without giving anything a waxy look. There aren’t too many new special features but the commentary with Mike Leeder and Ross Boyask is a major highlight.
Special Features:
DISC 1 (4KUHD):
- Brand New HDR Dolby Vision Master – From 16bit 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative
- NEW Audio Commentary by Action Film Historians Mike Leeder and UK Cult Movie Director Ross Boyask
- 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Stereo
- Triple-Layered UHD100 Disc
- Optional English Subtitles
DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):
- Brand New HD Master – From 16bit 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative
- NEW Audio Commentary by Action Film Historians Mike Leeder and UK Cult Movie Director Ross Boyask
- Vintage Interview Clips with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Peter Hyams, Powers Boothe and Ross Malinger (8:01)
- Behind-The-Scenes Footage (6:59)
- TV Spot
- Theatrical Trailer
- 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Stereo
- Dual-Layered BD50 Disc
- Optional English Subtitles
The only major letdown here is the lack of chapter selection from the main menu which is basic stuff and a strange thing to miss; now you have to start the movie and skip forward using the controller to find the right spot. It’s hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is still annoying. I was also hoping for more new input from JCVD and Peter Hyams, so it’s a shame there isn’t much new.
Aside from that, this is another top tier 4K from Kino and the film itself is good enough to make this worth picking up.
Overall, Sudden Death is one of my favourite Van Damme films with a killer performance from Power Boothe, the best man vs. penguin fight ever and plenty of action and violence/. John Debney’s score is incredible and sounds better than ever in 4K.