Sudden Death
Sudden Death
R | 22 December 1995 (USA)
Sudden Death Trailers

When a man's daughter is suddenly taken during a championship hockey game – with the captors demanding a billion dollars by game's end – he frantically sets a plan in motion to rescue her and abort an impending explosion before the final buzzer.

Reviews
UnowPriceless

hyped garbage

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Listonixio

Fresh and Exciting

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MoPoshy

Absolutely brilliant

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Lela

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

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Python Hyena

Sudden Death (1995): Dir: Peter Hyams / Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Booth, Raymond J. Barry, Ross Malinger, Whittni Wright: Title describes its box office results. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a firefighter who quit his job but unfortunately not the film industry. He emerges as a security guard at a stadium and takes his two children to a hockey game attended by the President but Powers Booth holds the V.I.P. group hostage and demands money or bombs will go off at the end of the game. Perhaps he should have demanded a higher salary for allowing himself to be part of this crap fest. Before long Van Damme's daughter ends up in the isolation booth and many bone breaking battles follow. Production succeeds where story fails. Director Peter Hyams previously made Time Cop with Van Damme and together they prove that two heads are not necessarily better than one. Booth is laughable as this villain whose ass will get kicked. It is just that so many others are ahead of him in the wait line. Raymond J. Barry is wasted as the President. Ross Malinger plays Van Damme's son who stays put when told. Perhaps had he left then he would have avoided any further involvement in one of the year's worst films. Whittni Wright plays Van Damme's daughter who laughably yet tearfully informs Booth that her dad will hand his ass to him. Pointless wretch that should be met with sudden death. Score: 1 / 10

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Thomas Luckens

Let's face it, we all love watching someone die in a movie. Whether it be the teenage girl in the horror movie, or a good hearted main character. You can't help but laugh and not feel sorry for them. This is one of my favorite movies to watch when I need a good laugh. Let me start by saying the beginning was really funny. That poor little girl, I feel so sorry for her parents... Oh, who am I kidding? It was pretty darn funny! Watching a little girl die in the arms of a firefighter makes me feel so good inside. Like God is taking precious care of us. Pfffft. Anyway, then comes lots of other killing. I'm telling you, you'll laugh your butt off watching these poor people die. My personal favorite scene happens when one of the bad guys takes an old lady hostage in her home. He then tells her to call her husband, and give him directions. The bad guy says he won't hurt her. Lol, I should have known better. Later, the bad guy and old lady are watching TV. She thinks she's okay, but then he says "Well, gotta go." and killshots her. I never laughed so hard at someone dying. I would personally call it a highlight of the film. But it's okay, her time was coming soon anyway. Her husband, a really cool chef, gets shot too. And even more people die. There's just so much to laugh at, the comedy never ends! I can't recommend this movie enough. I only wish Emily would have been killed, as that would have been hilarious. Between dying six year old girls, and hilarious killshots, it was worth watching every minute of "Sudden Death". I just might put it at the top of my comedy movie list.

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Maziun

*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS"Sudden death" is another one of those "Die hard" clones . Some of them were good ,some were bad. Unfortunately this one falls into the second category. I don't mind the lack of originality. However the plot is so ludicrous it was almost doomed to fail even as a brainless action movie. According to writer Randy Feldman, he wrote the first draft of the screenplay for the movie as a comedy / action movie parody. The movie was later rewritten as a serious action movie. That fact itself should be a warning for the viewer… The only scene that remained in the finished film was the scene with the penguin mascot (one of the most laughable scenes I have ever seen). A disgraced former fireman takes on a group of terrorists holding the Vice President and others hostage during the seventh game of the NHL Stanley Cup finals. The screenplay is so stupid that kills any possible tension. • Why the filmmakers decided to make the hostage the Vice President of USA ? Why not have the terrorist attack the President of USA ? • Why the terrorists would choose a Stanley Cup final to carry out their operation ? • Furthermore , If you were planning an elaborate almost military criminal operation, why choose a Game 7 ? Why not Game 5 or 6 ? • Vice President is in attendance and the security is tight. Yet JCVD seems to go where he wants with no visible ID. He even wanders around the arena defusing bombs, no-one stops him aside from the occasional bad guy who tries to kill him. • It also seems that the bad guys had no problems planting bombs all over the arena and nobody from the security noticed them. • Access to the elevator is controlled by the Head Chef... Furthermore the security guys are too dumb to check the newcomers for hidden guns or bombs. Secret service agents have rarely been so incompetent. • The story at the beginning with the little girl dying in JCVD arms had NOTHING to do with the rest of the movie. It would make sense if JCVD for example was afraid of fire or failure and had to fight his fear at some point of movie (think "Cliffhanger" and the opening scene). • I can somewhat buy the fact that an ex-fireman knows something about explosives , but it doesn't explain how does he knows martial arts so good. If he was a cop that would make sense , but an ex-fireman ? • Why the audience inside the hockey stadium is oblivious to the situation despite many explosions around them ? • Why the bad guy in mascot costume didn't simply kill JCVD daughter ? Why he brought it out to Foss ? He could kill her and hide the body somewhere , it's a big stadion overall. • The girls in women's bathroom didn't noticed the death body ? • Why despite many explosions outside the stadium there are NO journalists , media , TV reporters etc etc ? Nobody saw them or nobody thinks there interesting ? • Who exactly Foss is ? It's never really explained. • Why didn't the black FBI agent (the traitor) simply killed JCVD instead of playing games with him ? • The twist with Foss waiting for the end of extra time (Sudden death) to kill all the people in the stadium is just laughable. • I have never seen people move in such an orderly and polite fashion where they are allegedly in fear for their lives.Some unbelievable moments : Nobody in a hockey mascot costume can see too much or move too fast, so they definitely can't fight. The fact that JCVD almost loses the fight is pure comedy gold . Also, a helicopter's lift is always in a direction nearly parallel to the rotor axis, so it cannot come close to maintaining a position where its nose is straight up. In such a position it would move violently sideways (the rotor leading) and fall rapidly. Oh , JCVD ends up on the ice as the goalie at one point, making a key save !The little kids are terribly annoying. The acting is substandard . Powers Booth overacts his terribly underwritten role. The characters are poorly written and paper-thin.Nobody is really interesting or likable. The action isn't completely unimaginative , yet the stupidity of plot simply destroys any excitement. Not too much of karate here , some might find it disappointing. With stupid plot , lack of martial art sequences and interesting villains this movie doesn't have much to offer. I have to admit that "SD" has decent budget , special effects and is nicely directed. Some of the jokes and dialogues are actually very funny. It doesn't change the fact that I recommend it only to die-hard fans of JCVD and hockey. I give it 3/10.

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Comeuppance Reviews

Darren McCord (Van Damme) is a sort of down-on-his-luck ex-firefighter from Pittsburgh. To help show he's a good dad, he takes his two kids, Tyler and Emily (Malinger and Wright) to see their beloved Penguins play the Chicago Blackhawks in a big hockey game for the Stanley Cup. As it turns out, the Vice President of the United States (Barry) is also a big hockey fan and in attendance, and a gang of baddies led by the maniacal but smooth Joshua Foss (Boothe) threaten to kill the Vice-Prez, and blow up the arena with all 17,000 people inside if they don't get the money they're asking for. As if that wasn't enough, they've kidnapped Emily and are holding her with the other hostages in one of the luxury boxes. And Hallmark (Harewood) of the secret service doesn't seem to be of much help. So it's up to Darren McCord to try and dismantle all the bombs, save his family, save the Vice-Prez, save the hockey fans, and stop Foss - all single-handedly. Can he do it? The now-classic 90's theme of "DieHardInA" movies is perhaps never better exemplified than here. Tired of accented and/or quirky baddies over-running water treatment plants, biochemical weapons labs, schools, hotels, train tunnels, malls, planes, dams, rock concerts, computer research facilities, buildings, Beverly Hillses, more buildings, and beauty contests (Lethal Tender , Deadly Outbreak, Detention, Crackerjack, Crackerjack 2, Irresistible Force, Strategic Command, Terminal Rush, Command Performance, Virtual Assassin, The Alternate, The Taking of Beverly Hills, The Last Hour, and No Contest, respectively), this time they try a hockey rink. Powers Boothe steals the show as the evildoer who looks like a dapper Oliver Stone. The whole thing is very competently and professionally directed, and it's standard action fare for the most part, with a few standout scenes and creatively-staged deaths that help endear the movie to the audience.The fact that it's the Vice President that's in trouble certainly threw us for a loop. But then again, what does the Vice President do, anyway? That's why it's good that Van Damme had kids (and an arena of self-described "Puckheads") to save, because if they had shot the VP, those stakes just aren't high enough. Also, it's good that they were able to get real teams, players, announcers and staff. That added some nice realism, instead of some made-up team like the Pittsburgh....Powers or something. (Though Boothe surely would have enjoyed that). Plus you know one of the baddies is evil because he has a "terrorist earring", and what we dubbed "evil popcorn" makes an appearance.Because it was the 90's, there are some great fashions on display, a character is playing Doom on a PC, Tyler has a mini Super Soaker, and McCord's son is named Tyler. It's a totally 90's name (heh heh). There was a time, not so long ago, that movies like this went to the theater. It seems hard to believe, but it's true. Sudden Death is certainly enjoyable, and will remind you of the action boom of the 90's right before it all went DTV.

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