We Die Young is about a young man named Lucas (Elijah Rodriguez), who makes collections and deals drugs for MS-13 gang leader Rincon (David Castaneda). One of the people he deals to is Daniel (Van Damme) an Afghan War vet whose vocal chords were damaged in the war, and who takes oxys to dull the pain and help with his PTSD. All is going well, until Lucas discovers his 10-year-old brother is being jumped into the gang, and he can't have that. The problem is, he was supposed to deliver some bricks of cash to someone for Rincon, and now that he hasn't done that, the people who were supposed to get said cash are coming for Rincon, who in turn is coming for Lucas. Maybe this Afghan War vet can help.
This has its moments. One, Van Damme turns in another nice performance, and Castaneda was solid too. Also Elijah Rodriguez, whose Lucas character is the center of everything, does a great job making that work. On the other hand, there were some issues, the biggest is the unevenness with Van Damme's character in the story. It felt like maybe his character wasn't meant to be in the movie at all, but when producer Moshe Diamant, who has a long history with Van Damme, found out he could get him for this, they added the part in in order to make that happen. It makes sense, because I wouldn't be watching or reviewing this for the site without Van Damme, let alone include it on a podcast episode, but as I said, it makes the whole thing uneven, as there are elements of Van Damme's character that aren't developed as well, but also we don't know if he's the hero, or Rodriguez. The other thing is, the whole MS-13 thing feels like bad Latin American scare mongering, which in 2019 would've fit in with the rest of the anti-immigrant slander in the US, and great performances by Castaneda and Rodriguez weren't able to overcome that. Finally, we come to a Van Damme film for the action, and while we did get some here, there was also a lot of shaky cam that disrupted it. For me, this is really for Van Damme completists only, but I would watch some of his others first before you get to this one.
Speaking of Van Damme, this is his 37th film on the site. Yes, it's his 38th tag, but one of those was for the 400th post, which was the Van Damme film fest, so it doesn't count as a movie. Based on that, we could get him into the 40 Club if we do The Gardiner along with Swelter and Welcome to the Jungle. He also has some things in production that could get us there. The 40 Club is a big deal, especially for someone like him who also had a large big screen career. And unlike Seagal, who's been stuck on 39 since 2019, and whose movies are mostly all the same, Van Damme has tried a lot of different things, and this movie is testament to that. I think that's what interested him in the project, beyond wanting to do Moshe Diamant a solid, and it does show in his performance, it's just that we lose him for big chunks because we'll following Rodriguez's character and what he's up to. Either way, I do think the fact that Van Damme has been taking projects like this should be applauded.
David Castaneda does a solid job here, taking what was a standard gangster role, that was attempted to be written with nuance, but was pretty one-note, and imbuing it with his own nuance. In 2019 he would also start on The Umbrella Academy, which took his career to another level, and he was able to leave these kinds of movies behind--at least for now anyway. For as solid an actor as he is, it's interesting that one area he's been inhabiting is the bigger name who gets killed off in the first act, as this happens to him in both The Ballerina and Trap House. Hopefully soon he'll get more parts that let him last longer into the movie! It's always cool in the DTV world to get a name like this just before they get bigger, and it brings an added element to watching them beyond the film's main star.
We often talk about how New York City is a character in itself in a film, and while I don't know if Washington, DC is quite at that level, it is a pretty recognizable city, especially when a set in Bulgaria is supposed to pass for it. Then the comment Lucas makes about how the area they lived in was only 20 minutes from the White House, it made it sound like Lior Geller, the writer and director, hadn't really been to DC before. It was like when the Bush 41 Administration set up a fake crack buy across from the White House in 1989, the guy they got to sell them the drugs had no idea where the White House was or where they wanted him to meet them, the "20 minutes from the White House" was more of the film's anti-Latin American propaganda, like "these evil illegal immigrant gangs are only 20 minutes from the White House!" Beyond the bad propaganda aspect, it just all plays goofy to have what is clearly a studio set in Bulgaria that looks nothing like any part of DC trying to be passed off as DC. My advice to low-budget filmmakers: if you can't shoot there, just make up place and set the film there instead. We'll be more accepting of that than this.
Finally, the film's title for some reason or other gets The Power Station's "We Fight for Love" aka "Someday, Somehow, Someone's Gotta Pay" in my head. Every time I saw it, I thought "we die for young..." which doesn't make any sense, but I guess that's how I think about things musically. I was trying to think from a soundtrack standpoint how many songs are better than that one. It's the punctuation mark on one of the greatest films of all time. I found out this song came after Robert Palmer left the group and was replaced by Michael Des Barres, which is why the vocals are different from things like "Some Like It Hot" and "Get It On." I don't know if it would've been better with Palmer's vocals, but there was a period when they reformed with the original line-up in 1996, which makes me curious to know if Palmer performed this live, or if he insisted on no Des Barres songs while they toured.
And with that, let's wrap this up. You can get this on Plex here in the States, but it's kind of an odd one because it comes and goes on Tubi too, so you may see it on there again at some point. As I said above, I think this is for Van Damme completists only, but I think those Van Damme fans will find something in his performance. Also, check out the podcast episode Sean and I did on this one, number 246 in the archives.
For more information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7903530
And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
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