On May 21, the official digital release of the action thriller «Darkness of Man» starring action star Jean-Claude Van Damme took place. In this review, we discuss why the filmmakers have chosen the wrong genre for their unpretentious brainchild.
Pluses:
the presence of past stars in the frame;
Minuses:
the absolute absurdity of almost everything that happens on the screen;
«Darkness of Man»
Genre thriller, action movie
Director James Cullen Bressack
Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kristanna Loken, Emerson Ming, Spencer Breslin, Zach Ward, Cynthia Rothrock, Shannen Doherty
Premiere digital services
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
Once upon a time, in a roadside diner, a tough Interpol agent, Russell Hatch, promised desperate Esther that he would take care of her son, Jayden. The woman is connected to the Korean mafia, so if something happens to her, the boy will need protection. According to the rules of the genre, something happens to her immediately afterwards, and Russell, in addition to his passion for hard liquor and having fun with his new passion, devotes himself to the care of a Korean teenager.
This extremely important mission involves not only a constant headache from the damned booze, but also pits the Hatch against unfriendly representatives of the Korean and Russian mafias. Now he’ll have to recall his best fighting skills to fight back against criminal elements who have nothing better to do than mess with a bumbling schoolboy.
If any of the viewers, fans of Jean-Claude Van Damme, for example, had any hopes for this film, they risk being dashed in the first five minutes. It is then that the debut shootout takes place in the frame, in which the protagonist, right in the middle of the process, when he could die, receives the most ridiculous (or the funniest, depending on who you ask) wound in the history of cinema.
And don’t be fooled by the instant action without suspense, because «Darkness of Man» really wants to look like a gloomy and viscous thriller, while there are only crumbs left of an action movie. For those who didn’t get enough of Van Damme’s voiceover, blinds and night rain at the beginning to realize that we have a cool film noir here, and not this pointless shooting, posters of «The Big Sleep» (1946) and «In a Lonely Place» (1950) with genre icon Humphrey Bogart will be flashing in the frame.
But a poor mimicry of «black cinema» from James Cullen Bressack, director of such unforgettable «hits» as «Beyond the Law» (2019) with the unpleasant Seagal or «Survive the Game» (2021) with Bruce Willis looks pretty damn funny. In the first minutes of the movie, Van Damme’s character politely refuses to drink, and in the 20th minute, given the mess going on around him, he orders a bottle from the bartender. And he can be understood.
The best years of this show’s main star are far behind him, so instead of the trademark choppers, the plot offers pseudo-philosophical voiceovers, from which you can learn that no matter what stone you throw into the water, it will sink anyway. The few fight scenes here are too pathetic to make any sense to compare them to the staging of new-age action films, although Jean-Claude still tries to assure us that he is still street fighter Not a chance.
If Bressak had added a bit of self-irony to this triumph of sheer boredom or stopped pretending to be a serious filmmaker, we could have seen a completely different movie, even if it was a straightforward B movie. But no, the local screen absurdity is presented with the most serious expression on its face.
The following scene is a cringe-worthy one: the protagonist, whose only disguise is sunglasses, gets into the car of a Russian mafia boss as if nothing had happened. The latter is also looking for Alexei’s killer, who is our genius of disguise. The unlucky gangsters discover that they have a stranger in the car halfway to their deaths. This kind of drama announces two interesting things. The first is that the filmmakers take their audience for an idiot. The second is that Russians are so stupid that they cannot distinguish between people. How were they going to find Alexei’s killer, let alone deal with the Koreans?
Meanwhile, Russell Hatch, like the recent John Sugar (there’s been a lot of noir aesthetics lately), suffers from hand tremors, puts his hand to the bottle and confidently continues to share his valuable thoughts with the audience. In particular, he tirelessly pours out metaphors about how life is decay, and there is no smoke without fire, or something like that.
You can get a lot more pleasure from watching it if you perceive it as a comedy, take my word for it.
In addition to the stalwart Van Damme, for whom the costumers were not even too lazy to find a nice trench coat (but apparently there was not enough budget for a fedora), other stars who had long been written off came to the tasteless festival. The model Kristanna Loken started out promisingly and even rivaled Iron Arnie himself in «Terminator 3». But then something obviously went wrong with the beauty, and her avid participation in netlinks by German artist Uwe Boll put an end to the actress’s participation in same projects.
Here, Kristanna literally plays the protagonist’s first aid kit: as soon as he gets drugged in the next showdown, she appears as a magical savior. So to speak, she regressed from TX — to HP. Shannen Doherty, whom you may remember from the TV hits «Charmed» or «Beverly Hills, 90210», also appeared in the frame for one unfortunate dialog. Now, Doherty is a regular in Bressack’s films. And Cynthia Rothrock and Eric Roberts also made a small cameo.
It’s nice to know that the stars of the golden era of action movies are still trying to stay in the game. But at the same time, it’s a shame that they have to do their act in this kind of trash. Van Damme has already fired back this year. Now queue for Chuck Norris.