Ordinarily I would tag Jean Claude Van Damme vehicles under Guilty Pleasure. You could watch them and be thoroughly entertained but nothing of the plot would register and the next time you watch the movie, it would feel like the very first time. This amazing repeat-viewability is the hallmark of a generic action movie and Assassination Games harks back to simpler, happier times. Vintage 90s action movies with their clichéd plots, inane dialogues, one-note characters and innumerable sequels are comfort food for the bored soul and I have often found it to be a very pleasant experience to catch a few minutes of Kickboxer or Universal Soldier or Bloodsport at dinnertime on a weekday and then hop off to sleep, content with the fact that the world is a better place with a super-fit JCVD having saved the day with a slo-mo roundhouse kick.
But I digress. Since JCVD hasn’t visited his roots in a while and since this movie might be his transition into a more peaceful life (NOT RETIREMENT! NEVER! UNACCEPTABLE!) and symbolic of him handing over the mantle to a younger star, I think it is fitting to spend a few minutes and revel in the glow of its mere existence.
Vincent Brazil is an assassin who accepts a contract to kill a drug dealer. He comes across Roland Flint who is also on the bad guy’s trail. Roland has his own baggage and personal score to settle with the bad guys. Both have to team up to get the job done and do.
JCVD is well JCVD, albeit a jaded, rough version. Father Time has not been kind to our beloved star. Gone is the handsome, muscled man with a sparkle in his eye who danced so crazily in a weird Thai bar in Kickboxer. He now has a face that could rival those of the caricatured villains in his earlier movies in scariness. Also missing is the relentless action we had come to expect from him. He doesn’t get into fisticuffs too often and is content with handling guns in this feature.
I have adored Scott Adkins since I watched ‘Ninja’. He is a good looking guy, is trained in the arts and isn’t too terrible at acting – a fairly rare combination. Here he brings more of his one-expression-and-reaction-to-everything goodness to the table. I think Roland is supposed to be American but his British accent stumbles through in moments of excitement. I thought his fighting skills were under-utilized though. He spends too much time in contemplation and in gazing at his comatose wife when he should making mince meat of the penny-a-dozen villains.
Many action film tropes are incorporated here – European setting, fancy weapons, Eurotrash villains with weird accents, eurotrash hooker with weird accent, corrupt secret service agents, unnecessary romantic subplot for JCVD, below average actors on a hamming spree etc etc. However, we watch action movies for their chase and fight sequences and there isn’t nearly enough of that here. The script attempts to get cerebral and intent on examining themes of guilt, revenge and karma – concepts that our leads are woefully ill prepared to handle. The makers should have chucked this out of the window and put in more stunts.
Nothing truly extraordinary and a few years down the line, late night TV might help it become another can of comfort food. But it is a welcome return to form (somewhat) for a movie idol.
