Double Impact (1991)

Directed by Sheldon Lettich. Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Geoffrey Lewis, Alonna Shaw, Philip Chan, Alan Scarfe, Corinna Everson, Bolo Yeung. [R]

It’s double the Van Damme-age in this adequate actioner that has the high-kicking Belgian star playing twin brothers who were separated at birth. One grew up in a Hong Kong orphanage, became a smuggler, and chomps on cigars; the other had a more fortunate upbringing in France, runs a martial arts dojo, and wears black silk underwear; ain’t they a pair? After a contentious reunion, they battle Triad goons and a former business partner of their murdered father, but the fact that so little about the bad guys is interesting or even coherent is the main reason why this brainless time-killer isn’t more fun. Lots of beat-‘em-up action and gunfights, the occasional (intentional) bit of comic relief, and—oh, what the heck?—a little softly-lit gratuitous sex thrown in for good measure. (How gratuitous, one might ask? The entire scene is nothing more than the paranoid fantasy of one of the brothers that his girlfriend (Shaw) is, ahem, checking to see how similar the twins are in the most thorough way possible.) The first of several films where Van Damme plays dual roles, but only one of the brothers is ever shown doing the splits—what a gyp!

52/100