Truly Dreadful Film

Awesome Movie

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Deep within a forest on the U.S.-Canadian border, two sworn enemies must work together to escape a ruthless drug cartel hell-bent on retrieving a drug shipment which went missing there. Jean Claude Van Damme gives one of his most insane perfomances in 'Enemies Closer' and believe me i mean that in a good way. He is pretty crazy and that scene where he killed all those guards is easily the highlight of the movie. If you loved him as the bad guy in 'The Expendables 2'? You're going to love him even more in this film plus Peter Hyams knows how to do action. (A+)

This straight-to-DVD Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick is distinguished by a "name" director (Peter Hyams; '2010', and JCVD flicks 'Timecop' and 'Sudden Death') and somewhat recognizable B-list faces in Tom Everett Scott and Orlando Jones. I don't know that they make the film any better, but they certainly give it a sheen of credibility so often lacking in these affairs.But the real star here is Van Damme. Years of hard living has left the once matinée idol looking like a hobo with a gym membership, but he brings a quirky energy to his rare villain role.'Enemies Closer' is an efficient, moderately entertaining little action movie, and a good step or two above the usual straight to video trash flooding the bargain bin at your local Wal-Mart.

With After Dark Films as a production coordinator you immediately know you're in for cheap and then when we have an opening scene in which an airplane flies over a lake and then suddenly dives prop first into it but looking like a model airplane making that final plunge, then you really know. Even the little splash of water looked like filming the after splash of dropping a rock into the lake. JCVD, in case you hadn't figured it out, used a well made up stunt double for what ever was suppose to be action, but was so poorly choreographed I would have preferred watching kids wrestling in the yard. Acting (dare I say that) with a robotic and not believable max of 13 words a line between cuts. The dialogue had that written by high schoolers quality for all the dumb juvenile tripe exchanged. OK, you want proof they may not be actors. Practically everyone associated had in their resumes - all TV spots, TV series, TV movies with - fine - a few movies entitled, "Mars Needs Moms", "Clash of the Santas", "Rabbit Fever". Storyline is about drugs being flown between Canada and the US but filmed mostly in Bulgaria (3/4ths of the people associated, including JDVDs personal chef & driver, had last names ending in "ev" or "ov"). Come on Bulgaria, can't you be more creative than that. The rest of the film was shot in Louisiana - so much for credibility.

I have been watching Van Damme movies from decades ago, and pretty much all of them sucked, with very few exceptions. For the first time, we see Van Damme in solely a villain role, which happens to be his best yet. I never thought I would see a Van Damme movie that I liked so much. In this one, he is absolutely superb. Some of the movie is tedious and drawn out, but not the parts with Van Damme. This is his greatest role, and it's the first time I have seen him play just the villain, and he rivals Jack Nicholson as The Joker. Just because he's older and playing a villain doesn't make him any less potent. In this movie, he was close to an Oscar nod.