mgulev What this movie lacks in acting, realism and surprises it makes up for in running time - it is comfortably short. The plot is recognizable enough: Rebels try to throw over a president, USA protects him and ends up raising flags and salutes as a tribute to the invulnerability of the American soldier, who is willing to lay down his life for a questionable cause. JCVD runs through the action and general mayhem on autopilot. The rest of the cast follow this lead ... much like lemmings. There are no surprises in this movie; not for lack of trying, though. There are "twists", but they come as no surprise to anyone who has seen more than five movies in his life. Especially not if these are JCVD-movies. Soldiers on both sides drop like lemmings off a cliff, pulling the movie and its rating with it.

alex a I was really disappointed watching this movie. As a citizen of Republic of Moldova, I had the same filing as if someone from USA will watch an action movie about Washington DC that was filmed in some average Mexican city. People that made this movie had to do a little research on the country they make movie about and show at list something close to reality. Not just go in some Romanian city that doesn't have anything in common with the capital of Moldova, Chisinau, and shoot a movie with a bunch of Romanians that also doesn't know much about this country. That's why I rate it with 2.

Paul Andrews Second in Command is set in the civil war torn Eastern European country of Moldovia, there the situation is at critical as the newly elected President Yuri Amirev (Serban Celea) tries to Govern his people. However he has a huge insurgent problem, a 500 plus strong group of militia lead by Anton Tavarov (Velibor Topic), while trying to storm the Presidential Palace & seize control of the country several civilians are shot & killed by Palace guards which sends the angry mob into a violent frenzy. At the US Embassy ambassador George Norland (Colin Stinton) & his second in command, ex navy seal Commander Sam Keenan (Jean-Claude Van Damme), organise & carry out rescue mission in which President Amirev is saved from the insurgents & sheltered in the US Embassy. With US relations already low in Moldavia the Embassy becomes the point of attack for the insurgents who are determined to overthrow President Amirev...This American Romanian co-production was directed by Simon Fellows & as far as I am concerned Second in Command is pretty poor even by JCVD standards whose films are usually fun & watchable if nothing else. The script is a sort of poor mans cross between Black Hawk Down (2001) with it's story about US military soldiers trapped in some anti American country up against local militia with the base under siege plot of Assault on Precinct 13 (1976, 2005) & there's even a Zulu (1964) style against all the odds fight at the end where the good guy's are badly outnumbered by the enemy but still carry on under impossible odds. To give Second in Command some credit I thought the story was alright & it certainly moves along at a good pace, there isn't much boring exposition but that obviously comes at the expense of the character's & the marines in particular suffer in this regard as it's very difficult to tell who is who since they all look the same & aren't even given names. The action is quite small scale, JCVD doesn't get to use his moves very often, there's that whole somewhat cheesy American patriotism in the face of overwhelming odds type sentimentality & was it just me or did it seem like no-one else lived in Moldovia apart from US soldiers & heavily armed insurgents? Where were the local population?As usual JCVD gets to be the hero, despite all the evidence pointing to one solution & one way JCVD opposes it for no good reason & then turns out to be totally right & he gets to save the day, save the US civilians, the Moldovian President & therefore the entire country. Just in a days work for JCVD really. The storyline in Second in Command is very topical & could be said to be based on some sort of realistic foundation, or you could say Second in Command uses the current political climate to hang a less than average JCVD action flick on. Whichever way you want to look at it I suppose. The single most annoying & irritating aspect of Second in Command is the cinematography, it's awful shaky hand-held camcorder stuff which I just hate anyway. You know, it's when the camera twitches, jerks, sways & just feels like it's being operated by someone who is drunk. I hate hand-held shaky camcorder cinematography, it's used quite often these days yet I don't know a single person who likes it. Why do filmmakers continue to use this style? Where's the evidence that people actually like it? The action set-pieces aren't great, there's a few shoot-outs, a couple of fights, an exploding bus & that's about it.With a supposed budget of about $12,000,000 Second in Command feels very cheap, the awful hand-held cinematography, the small scale action & some poor CGI work don't help either. Although set in Moldovia this was filmed in Bucharest in Romania. The acting isn't anything to write home about & JCVD seems to be on autopilot here & pretty much phones in his performance.Second in Command is very much second rate JCVD, if this is anything to go by his Universal Solider (1992), Hard Target (1993), Timecop (1994) & Sudden Death (1995) days are long behind him. Still, he has made worse than this although that's certainly no recommendation.

KHayes666 When I first saw the back cover to this, the first thing I could think of was "uh oh....another military themed movie." But appearances can be deceiving and it turned out to be a decent flick.The plot to this one is a new president was elected in Moldavia (Vigo the Carpathian must be proud) and the citizens are none too happy. A gaggle of rebel militants threaten to overthrow and kill the new prez so the US Embassy calls upon Van Damme to save the day. What looks like a standard evac turns into a complete Alamo where the US Marines barely make it out alive with the president.I thought the cast did a hell of a job with the roles they were given, Raz Adoti was hilarious which would be akin to his role in Doom. Van Damme was his usual self which you can consider good or bad while the rest of the unknowns did a tremendous job. The only negative I can think comes near the end where the Moldavian army sides with the rebels and lays waste to the Embassy building, are we to believe a few American cobra choppers repel a panzer column? The highlight of the movie is Raz Adoti's one liners, picking up where he left off in Doom. The rest of the movie was a modern day Alamo, I say its worth picking up only if you now what you're getting into 6 out of 10