Darkness of Man has Van Damme as Russell Hatch, an Interpol agent who was supposed to be protecting a witness, but when she's killed, he agrees to protect her son. Years later, said son is now a teenager, and said son doesn't get along well with either the grandfather who's taking care of him, or Van Damme, who acts as the guy driving him to school while living in an extended stay hotel. At the same time, the kid's uncle runs an organized crime ring, which is going up against the Russians in an all-out turf war. Will the son get caught in the middle? And if so, will Van Damme be able to protect them? Is this his chance at redemption after failing to protect the mother all those years ago? Oh, and isn't Cynthia Rothrock in this film?
When Sean and I were looking at Van Damme movies to cover, it was between this one and the two Kill 'Em All films, and Sean said he needed to do this one first because he'd already seen it, and wanted to cover it while it was still fresh in his mind so he didn't have to watch it again. And that pretty much sums this one up, it's a rough sit, and you don't want to put yourself through it again. Why? First off, it's long, 107 minutes. Second, we have a lot of moving parts, and to try and sort them all out, we have Van Damme's voice-overs. Third, there are random things that feel like they were grafted into the movie, like the fact that Kristanna Loken's character is a veterinarian. Finally, we have a lot of moments where not a lot happens. It's a recipe for a tough sit. There are some bright spots though. We have some fun Van Damme fights, and director James Cullen Bressack went for some old Film Noir tones, that, when combined with the cinematography of Pascal Combes-Knoke led to some inspired shot composition; and I think something does need to be said for filmmakers and stars trying to do something outside the usual DTV fare, so I don't want to dump on this completely, it just missed for me overall.
We're now at 35 films for Van Damme, even though he has 36 tags, because our 400th post was a Van Damme film fest, so it doesn't count for inclusion in the 40 Club. At 35, could he get there? In the hopper we still have Kill 'Em All, and then for DTV stuff left to watch, there's Swelter, Welcome to the Jungle, and We Die Young. That's 39, and depending on how we feel about The Gardiner, he could get there. As much as this movie didn't work, the thing I appreciated was how present Van Damme was, and how much he was trying to stretch himself and try something different. The fact that he's still doing that at this stage in his career, when he really doesn't have to--he could just be in the movie and cash the check--is refreshing, and is the reason why I'm still going to keep watching his stuff. (Though to be fair, Seagal is the exact opposite of Van Damme, and I still watch all of his stuff too.)
Cynthia Rothrock has a one-scene cameo, but a one-scene cameo is enough to get another tag, which puts her at 44. I don't even really know what she's doing here, she's the nurse checking in on Van Damme after he survived a shooting, and that's it. She doesn't even share the screen with Van Damme, who knows who she's even speaking to when they shot her lines. I thought when this first came out that she was higher billed on IMDb, but now I don't see her on the first page, so either I was wrong, or something changed and they shuffled the cast names to make her less prominent. It brings up an interesting concept in the world of IMDb, using listings on an actor's bio to sell a movie. Even if she's not on the first page of the movie's listing, when you go to Rothrock's bio, this is the fourth film from the top, and the only one of those four that's not rent VOD. If you click on it, and see it also has Jean-Claude Van Damme, and it's on Hulu, why wouldn't you want to see what that's about? And then you get this tough sit of a movie that doesn't know exactly what it wants to be, and Rothrock only has this one scene where she doesn't even fight at all. By then it's too late, Hulu and the movie got their stream, and you've been had. Will IMDb bait-and-switches become more prominent as we go on? We do have a couple movies in the hopper where she had bigger roles than this, The Last Kumite and Taken from Rio Bravo, so we'll be seeing more of her soon. Unless you're a completist like me, this isn't worth it if you're a fan of hers.
There are a bunch of other names in this, all playing parts of varying degrees. We mentioned Kristanna Loken above. She's the only other one who's tagged--still as "Painkiller Jane," because I haven't had the energy to retag her, even though this is only her sixth film on the site, so it wouldn't take that much work. It's crazy to think Painkiller Jane was still airing when we started the DTVC, it's been that long. We also had a couple James Cullen Bressack mainstays in Zack Ward, Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story, and Kristos Andrews. They play Russian mobsters here, and small, supporting roles. Then there were some nepo babies, with Weston Cage, and Van Damme's two sons Kris and Nicolas. Then we had MMA star Nick Diaz, former child star Spencer Breslin, and hip hop star Sticky Fingaz. I thought that was everyone, but totally forgot that Eric Roberts is in one shot where he orders a taco from a food truck. Your guess is as good as mine, but he was there.
One name I didn't mention, because I'm saving it for this paragraph, was the late Shannen Doherty. A 90s icon who grew to prominence with Beverly Hills 90210, then received a bad--and probably undeserved--reputation as being difficult to work with when she left that show. Soon she had two movies that were going to be her Hollywood breakouts: Blindfold: Acts of Obsession, which ended up going directly to the USA Network here in the US instead of getting a theatrical release; and Mallrats, Kevin Smith's follow-up to Clerks that wasn't as well-received, though I think people my age really loved it. Eventually she got on another TV show, Charmed, but that ended in more on-set strife, and from there she bounced around from TV movie to TV movie, which is where she ended up in the orbit of James Cullen Bressack, who cast her in a bunch of his films, with this one unfortunately being her last. I think one of the most enduring parts of her legacy is that when we think of 90210, we think of her, even though she was only on 111 of the show's 292 episodes, because she played such a compelling character, and they never really replaced her. Here's to you Ms. Doherty, you were one of the greats, and you'll be missed.
And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Hulu here in the States. As I said above, it's a bit of a tough sit, and with barely any Rothrock too. Proceed at your own peril. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode we did on this, number 194 in the archives.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23173980
And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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