
For Jean Claude van Damme fans, watching the film ‘Darkness of Man’ gives you the same thrill as watching an action film, this is how Jean Claude resurrects in the film. All this is in the past because he played a self-parody of himself while there was an action movie he starred in 2021 called The Last Mercenary. Not to forget the last three movies he was in JCVD and Jean-Claude Van Johnson.
There was self mockery, however, with films like The Bouncer aka Lukas or We Die Young, and perhaps writers were unsure how much of his action craft to showcase. Violence seems to be a loose theme but, with Darkness of Man, it is quite the opposite of not following action movie regulations, as the title suggests. As for the other franchisee, it doesn’t seem to support The Last Mercenary which is still endorsing an eccentric idea. It is hard to expect Van Damme and the action genre to meet the expectations of his other movies Dark Nights of Man because they are completely opposite.
Pound of Flesh features Jean Claude Van Damme as Russell Hatch, an Interpol agent who is on a drinking spree after losing everything he had. Russell is anything but calm because Michaloto, Russell’s character was troubled with the death of an informant named Esther. But he has one thing that gives him hope, his desire to refrain from alcohol for the sake of little Jayden, Esther’s child. To cope with it, he starts beating up Esther’s grandfather and keeps him safe.
On the other hand, Jayden becomes enraged with the Russians because he hates them for being horrible gangsters for no reason at all. Jayden also hates the Russians for ruining his family heritage, the reason for this being his father Mr. Kim, who sits idle and does nothing as the Russians are marauding their territory. But with all the Koreans over him, Jayden feels the need to beat the Russians off the spot.
I have to admit I wasn’t exactly happy seeing James Cullen Bressack taking over the directing duties for Darkness of Man. Not to say that I dislike this prolific director but all I knew Bressack from were a few Geezer Teaser pictures which were, let’s face it, some of the worst films ever made. They even have Steven Seagal, Bruce Willis, and Mel Gibson but even with these heavy-hitting names So Bressack isn’t too impressive either and this is pretty much the case with Beyond the Law, Survive the Night, and Hot Seat for example.
Unfortunately for the Darkness of Man, he currently does not have such an issue as he is in the correct place he has always been meant to be. The algorithm that is being showcased today has barely any traces visible in my past work. He is overly stuffed with multiple roles and most of his performances look rather dry and emotionless. Evidence suggests that Russell has much more to offer in terms of character depth and musical attunement. A mass is actually defined by the age it portrays and so agree with Van Damme’s portrayal of Russell Russell. However, I’m not sure this is the balletic husband of our childhood; this is a man who is still viable at the core. Of all the sportsmen, sometimes he gets more blows than he gives and that’s not bad.
Van Damme has been more willing than Seagal to try and keep his fans happy, and in fact, this was also the case here. The plot was even emphasized by himself! Van Damme however did step out of those shoes slightly when he acted in Darkness of Man for, differently from the impaired characters that he portrayed in the respective Lukas and We Die Young, he was a man gravely going through the loss of a variety of things after Russell’s wife Esther died, and then Russell only had to control the hate against the child, Jayden, he had to protect. Similarly, a child from the series of films gets stereotyped as one of those overly dramatic kids idolizing the hero only when she is screaming and being abusive.
Jean-Claude Van Damme on the other hand is almost present in all the sequences of the movie and in one of these, he does something unconventional, rather shrill, with his voice during an action sequence which although unimportant is still set within the atmosphere that Bressack aimed for the film to have. One of the contributing aspects to the overall dark and neo-noir atmosphere of the film is the fact that almost always, if not all, the fighting scenes in Darkness of Man were filmed on rain-soaked roads during the night, and blood was everywhere.
The motion picture has a distinctive style to it that distinguishes it from others. But out of all, the practice most certainly was not out of reach in the sense that cinematographer Pascal Combes-Knoke managed to make good captures of some of the scenes, but even so, there was, as I said, a very low use of neon silhouettes that much brightens up the movie. I must praise many DTV VOD filmmakers when they try hard like this, but sometimes, to my mind, the limitations of the budget that help reduce the sweetness of the deal set it off over here. There were times when such badly done rear projections were used which seemed out of place. Why are we asking Jean Claude Van Damme to do something really confusing? Why don’t you ask him to film a scene of himself holding a gun in the night and then make it night-time instead? As expected, there are a few poorly executed muzzle flash effects but not as many as there have been with all the hot and bloody guns.
Regarding the blood effects of the film, I think there are blood effects more than interesting wow the man focuses, for instance, the finger shots, head explosions, players getting blasted over and their guts are out, or the more it focuses on the grittiness of it. I do not intend to say that it is at the level of Rambo (2008) but one cannot be disillusioned by the fact that Bressack willingly goes beyond that in his pursuit of violence.
As expected, he performed really well and out of some fights, I remember he had some outstanding fights as well. This one had some fights too but was arranged by Luke LaFontaine, who was involved in the fight choreography of the great Boudica (2023) which came out last year. To avoid misunderstanding, I stress that these opinions belong to those fans who might think that the fights are in some way different in mood. There is less stylism in the kicks and punches and their performance is even less stylized.
But what struck me the most were the segments in which van Damme is in the garage and is trying to fend off an entire horde of his ragtag group of gangsters. All the van Damme in car garage action takes place in one vehicle so the camera continuously rotates around the vehicle in an attempt to find better viewpoints. Bressack has such an outstanding approach to the film and coupled with great camera work and blocking, he managed to sell the scene to the audience with some of it looking like it all happened in one cut.
Moreover, the angle that the artist uses to photograph the action does aid in doubling Van Damme where it is necessary, although this is a lot more subtle than it sounds. The rationale for this is that in the majority of the fighting films, this particular one including Sudden Death (1995) film that has some measure of common has been made up of the Valencians in addition to those who have multiple coaches Todd Senofonte.
There is a scope for adding one or two more action movements within the duration of the film. What is permitted is accomplished rather well but there could have been more action if the dynamism would have been improved. Attention is not being paid, there is not a scene in the celluloid that can be said to be tedious in nature, but there are some scenes that would have enhanced the coherence but were left out.
A really terrible movie keeps repeating the same mistakes, without regard to logic or composition. This time, they have added a professional voice actor who voiced over such important characters as Shamsher in Harmy’s Immortal and Fox in Shamsher Dominator. Justina Loken is unnecessary, because, along with a few more girls, she was simply placed behind the screen for decor. Sticky Fingaz plays the role of Russell’s older colleague from Interpol, but there is hardly a purpose for him in the plot apart from being just an annoying presence in the film. Even Peter Jae who is supposed to be the greatest evil of all time in the movie is not as evil as he was meant to be.
At the very least, they have more than a throwaway appearance as a nurse alongside action star Cynthia Rothrock. The same Shannen Doherty, or Kris Van Damme also come in one irrelevant scene trying to think will come later but the character’s father does not even speak to him. Another taco van customer is even odder thanks to an Eric Roberts cameo. Eric Roberts should have made his cameo in a movie as well as he did in Order Tacos, that would have been entertaining.
I honestly don’t care about revenue, bills, or going in front of the cameras because the fact is the film is not even close to being perfect. I concede that Jean-Claude Van Damme is a good actor but even he does not have a very appealing supporting cast. And what can one say when there is a revenge story done by a child and a thousand other action films boast of such a storyline? But still, it usually is quite possible to retain and even improve the originality of such film plots mainly due to good dialogues and a lot of cool characters. A decent lack of character building and banal dialogues is what set Darkness of Man apart from making it a worthy action film. That is why it is so disappointing that Darkness of Man is such a nonentity.
As with nearly all the pictures in which he starred The Muscle Man so as the film Roundhouse he starred in was totally out of focus, However, it’s easy to understand the incompetence of such films from an art graphics viewpoint owing to the fact that Van Damme played the lead role. It was quite interesting though to us in the context of bad scripts or rather horrible acting. After all, he did retire with the same fanfare and glory he always did. Technically he said that he has no intention of continuing his movie career, but neither has he said anything about limiting his engagements up to his own liking.
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