Derailed Belly Head of State
They took'em off the shelves at our Rogers Video across from my street, but too many people started asking for it, so they brought back 5 copies for the store - Belly of the Beast in DVD (finally!!! :=).
Just finished watching "Derailed." You know, it's not as bad as some might make it sound. The movie was in a typical straight-to-video style (something like Out For A Kill, but with more action). There are some very 'cheezy' special effects. They look very much like something out of a cartoon (that would probably be a better title: "Out Of a Cartoon," I think Seagal would have picked that title for that movie too) that the kids would like (unfortunately it's not rated for kids). That reminded me of Seagal's 'Foreigner' for some odd reason :=) You can tell from the scenes that miniatures were used for everything that had to blow up (except for a few, 2 or so, car crashes that just had some fender-benders).
The story line and the plot reminded me very much of Seagal's Under Siege 2, but I don't think it was intended to turn out that way. Van Damme's choreography was not great, but better than in "Knock Off" or than in "Double Team." Jean Claude actually tried ju-jitsu, which was very exciting as he fought the big russian mafia associate. Other than that, it was mostly his kickboxing and a lot of TKD. Jean Claude showed his emotional side to acting, and actually featured his son (who played Van Damme's young TKD practitioner son 'coincidentally'). It's interesting as JC's latest "In Hell" started shooting at the same time that "Derailed" was wrapping up, but the two pictures turned out completely different. After finishing "Derailed," Van Damme said that people can start expecting movies in which JC puts his heart and soul into, something he cares for (not just for $, as was during the Dennis Rodman times), and movies like his classic hits. "In Hell" was a huge turn-around.
"Head of State" awaits ...