Director: Sheldon Lettich
Writer: Sheldon Lettich, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes
Theme Song: “Feel the Impact,” Performed by Gen
Actual Tagline(s) … (Because a Twin Movie Should Have TWO): “One Packs a Punch. One Packs a Piece. Together, They Deliver.”
“Two Brothers Separated by the Violence. Now Together in a Mission of Revenge.”
What I Remember the Tagline Being: “Twice the Van Dammage.”
Suggested Tagline: “… Like Jean-Claude Van Damme Having Sex with Himself.”
CAST:
Jean-Claude Van Damme (Muscles from Brussels), as Chad Wagner, aka, “Mr. California, Mr. Silk Underwear.”
Unshaven Jean-Claude Van Damme, as Alex Wagner
Geoffrey Lewis as Frank Avery, the guy that can insert “fuck” into just about every sentence (in real life, he is also Juliette Lewis’ father)
Cory Everson as Danielle, the person who most acutely feels the Van Damme double-team action in this movie.
THE PLOT:
Double Impact is a double-the-pleasure movie from that 90’s that took four whole people to write and proves Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD) is the King of getting inappropriately over-enraged and over-excited about nothing in particular. This action-packed movie was also clearly sponsored by the belt industry and the makers of high-waisted pants.
Throughout Double Impact, JCVD proves that when you have two chances to suck, you can really do it up right. The movie is essentially comprised of a collection of uncomfortable extreme close-up shots of him checking out mentally interspersed with a lot of bewildering high kicks.
To be honest, for the first ten minutes, I wasn’t sure I was watching the right movie. We find ourselves in Hong Kong (potentially really the hills of Southern California) witnessing a vague political event involving the creation of the Hong Kong Island Tunnel in the 60’s, orchestrated by twins Alex and Chad Wagner’s father in a ceremony attended by a small collection of movie extras. As the family leaves, they give their body guard, Frank (Lewis) the night off, thus causing them to be killed after thousands of failed shots from 100 or so Chinese wielding what appear to be red paint guns amidst an assault of tom-tom-intensive, violin-riddled elevator music. One of the twins is kidnapped, though Frank is able to save Chad, who he takes back to California by boat after being shot by the main villain who has been confusingly shot in the face (possibly by his own henchmen). From this bloody scene, we learn that the second you take a night off from being a body guard in an action movie, unless you are JCVD, your charges are immediately brutally slain, and you can do nothing at all about it.
(DISCLAIMER: Because the director/producer didn’t bother to provide any English subtitles for the Chinese spoken in this movie – either out of respect for the culture, or more likely, because they are not actually speaking Chinese – my plot interpretation is loose, at best.)
In any good twin movie, one half of the twin set has to be raised by nuns, causing that twin to develop a massive chip on his shoulder. However, 25 years after the horrific slaying of the twins’ parents, the first one we meet as an adult is supposedly well-adjusted, over-sexed Chad in California.
As we learn more about Chad and wish someone had told the movie's music supervisor to take it easy on the synthesizer, we are left wondering which is more unbelievable – Jean Claude being 25 in 1991, or the character Chad building a fortune by teaching aerobics and karate. Regardless, his wardrobe was clearly selected based on what would make his ass look most like two ham hocks wrestling.
(The above picture has been minimized for your protection.)
After almost getting beaten up by an entire karate class (the members of which object to his choice of blue spandex as much as we do), he is told by a now older Frank (who finds out Chad’s twin is still alive while he is inappropriately massaging some of his students) that he needs to go to Hong Kong for undisclosed reasons. This prompts JCVD to change into an outfit that makes him look like he mugged Don Ameche in Cocoon.
Once Chad reunites with his twin Alex, we realize that the only thing they have in common is their high kick and their need to call attention to the extreme size of their penises. We also discover that you need more than a little luck to successfully explain a conspiracy theory to one JCVD, let alone two.
Alex, the evil twin, does dastardly things like provide the nice people of China with pretty cars and American cigarettes. He is also so badass that when on a boat, he can just look at people sideways, and they decide to immediately jump overboard while screaming.
A Tribute to JCVD’s Sarcastic, Ineffectual Punchlines in Double Impact:
“Nice going?! Nice going, my ass! I almost got killed!”
“Hey – can this piece of shit move any faster?”
“Welcome to Hong Kong.” (Delivered by Alex after throwing a Mercedes emblem from a blown-up car at his brother, Chad.)
(Chad, referring to the soup he is eating) – “What’s it supposed to do … make my dick bigger?”
(Chad, Right before getting kicked in the nuts) – “You go fuck yourself.”
(Alex, talking about Chad) – “Big kiss? I’ll give him a big kick in the ass, that’s what I’ll give him!”
And, the most offensive Jean-Claude Van Damme line ever delivered (by Alex), and potentially why we really don't see him in movies anymore:
“Maybe I’m drunk, tomorrow I’ll be sober, but he’ll always be a faggot.”
In general, the ass kicking in Double Impact takes a while to get started. With double the potential Van Dammage, you’d think they’d want to get it started right away, but they really make us wait for it. However, once it's on, it's ON, and we get a taste of what JCVD clearly believes about himself – that he is a better martial artist than all of China. Eventually we also discover that if you’re going to get high-kicked by JCVD in slow motion, put water in your mouth first to increase the drama.
The slightly bumbling Chad provides a nice reward for those of us that have been frustrated by JCVD’s inability to get very hurt in any of his movies. Watching him get repeatedly nailed in the nuts while wearing pleated Dockers will be one of the most satisfying experiences of your life, especially after watching him carefully drag his garment bag everywhere to protect his rockin’ 90’s wardrobe.
One of the most unique characteristics about Jean-Claude is his signature scream, which is offered up in great supply throughout Double Impact. It’s basically like an Arnold Schwarzenegger scream, if Arnold ate more bran and spoke slightly better English.
At one point, there is an interchange between the brothers that was probably repeated after production wrapped whenever JCVD thought about this movie while he was looking in the mirror:
CHAD: “Hey bro! We did it!”
ALEX: “Did what? You fucked up!”
In terms of sexual tension in Double Impact, it is most strongly felt in interactions between Jean-Claude Van Damme and himself. Of course, whenever any woman is around JCVD, her clothes fall off inexplicably and her hair dries seconds after swimming (undoubtedly, food also loses its taste and birds sing). However, the only sex scene – between Chad and Danielle, Alex’s girlfriend – looks like it was ripped uncomfortably from a naked production of the “Blue Man Group.” Thankfully, we get a great interplay between Chad and Danielle having sex on a boat and Alex somehow knowing through twin intuition they are having sex, knowledge that causes him to randomly punch everything in sight and shoot bourbon angrily out his nose.
A good twin action movie would be nothing without the main actor epically kicking his own ass at some point, and we get that in spades in this movie. They eventually reconcile after Chad proves his total confusion over geography and threatens to swim from Hong Kong to California (and truly believes he can do it) and join forces to totally kick everything in sight for the last 10 minutes.
Biggest Lesson Learned: If you see an Asian falling from a great height, JCVD was probably responsible.
Fun Trick: If you listen to Double Impact without watching it, you get a pretty close approximation of what it would sound like if JCVD could really have sex with himself.
Your Official Ending Spoiler:
Review by Julia Rogers
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