John Sprocket This movie is hilarious. I mean, not on purpose, but still hilarious. It was totally bank-rolled by some guy that own a hockey stadium and wanted to break into Hollywood. So his wife whipped him up a standard action movie script, they hired a 90s action hero, and shot the entire movie in his hockey stadium.The plot is paper thin and makes very little sense. The main hero is a simple fireman who appears to be a world-class martial artist. No explanation is given for his magical fighting powers. But the Vice President is in danger at the Stanley Cup and our hapless hero basically stumbles into the bad guys by accident.Pick an action movie trope from the 1990s and it is in there.At one point our hero fights a terrorist dressed in a giant penguin costume. And there isn't even a wink at the camera. It is deadly-serious mortal combat that get strangely dark and ends pretty gruesomely.Do not be fooled. This movie was not supposed to be funny, it is 100% serious about itself. I laughed myself stupid, and I hope you will too.

Thomas Luckens Let's face it, we all love watching someone die in a movie. Whether it be the teenage girl in the horror movie, or a good hearted main character. You can't help but laugh and not feel sorry for them. This is one of my favorite movies to watch when I need a good laugh. Let me start by saying the beginning was really funny. That poor little girl, I feel so sorry for her parents... Oh, who am I kidding? It was pretty darn funny! Watching a little girl die in the arms of a firefighter makes me feel so good inside. Like God is taking precious care of us. Pfffft. Anyway, then comes lots of other killing. I'm telling you, you'll laugh your butt off watching these poor people die. My personal favorite scene happens when one of the bad guys takes an old lady hostage in her home. He then tells her to call her husband, and give him directions. The bad guy says he won't hurt her. Lol, I should have known better. Later, the bad guy and old lady are watching TV. She thinks she's okay, but then he says "Well, gotta go." and killshots her. I never laughed so hard at someone dying. I would personally call it a highlight of the film. But it's okay, her time was coming soon anyway. Her husband, a really cool chef, gets shot too. And even more people die. There's just so much to laugh at, the comedy never ends! I can't recommend this movie enough. I only wish Emily would have been killed, as that would have been hilarious. Between dying six year old girls, and hilarious killshots, it was worth watching every minute of "Sudden Death". I just might put it at the top of my comedy movie list.

david-sarkies Right from the beginning I could see that this movie was going to be a Die Hard clone, which is not surprising because Die Hard was a very successful movie and created a trend that followed on behind it. The action in the movie was good but the plot seriously sucked. Basically there were so many holes in the plot that it created a movie that you only go and see for Van Damme, and I don't think that he is that great anyway. If you are wanting to see Van Damme's moves, then this is not the movie to see them in. In fact, if you simply want to see good fighting, hire out a Hong Kong video - there generally tends to be much better moves in them.The vice president is going to the Ice Hockey finals and some guy, the movie really never actually explains who he is, only that he knows the government security operations very well, holds him hostage so that he can force the president to remove money from frozen bank accounts. The problem is that they grab a nosey little girl who turns out to be Van Damme's daughter, and that brings him into it.Van Damme's character is a fireman who quit after a girl died in his arms. Now, the thing that annoyed me is that they showed this part, and it really had nothing to do with the movie. It could have just as easily been explained afterwards than to show it. I think that it would have been much better for the plot line if they spent some time describing who Foss, the antagonist, was. They dropped hints but they never actually went as far as outlining everything. Some might say that it is not important because this is an action movie, but I think it is. It makes for a very poor movie to simply disregard plot for action.Sudden Death is a better Van Damme movie and I enjoyed it. All but this stupid sporting commentator in the booth, but then this is what you expect from commentators. I generally do not watch sports because first I find them boring, but mostly because the commentators are prone to say the stupidest things. These guys tried to make themselves look tough, when they really just didn't think about what they were saying. Actually, it was even worse because it was scripted.I liked it, and I am sure Van Damme fanatics would love it. Personally I would rather go back to the original Die Hard. That is a finely crafted movie.

Comeuppance Reviews Darren McCord (Van Damme) is a sort of down-on-his-luck ex-firefighter from Pittsburgh. To help show he's a good dad, he takes his two kids, Tyler and Emily (Malinger and Wright) to see their beloved Penguins play the Chicago Blackhawks in a big hockey game for the Stanley Cup. As it turns out, the Vice President of the United States (Barry) is also a big hockey fan and in attendance, and a gang of baddies led by the maniacal but smooth Joshua Foss (Boothe) threaten to kill the Vice-Prez, and blow up the arena with all 17,000 people inside if they don't get the money they're asking for. As if that wasn't enough, they've kidnapped Emily and are holding her with the other hostages in one of the luxury boxes. And Hallmark (Harewood) of the secret service doesn't seem to be of much help. So it's up to Darren McCord to try and dismantle all the bombs, save his family, save the Vice-Prez, save the hockey fans, and stop Foss - all single-handedly. Can he do it? The now-classic 90's theme of "DieHardInA" movies is perhaps never better exemplified than here. Tired of accented and/or quirky baddies over-running water treatment plants, biochemical weapons labs, schools, hotels, train tunnels, malls, planes, dams, rock concerts, computer research facilities, buildings, Beverly Hillses, more buildings, and beauty contests (Lethal Tender , Deadly Outbreak, Detention, Crackerjack, Crackerjack 2, Irresistible Force, Strategic Command, Terminal Rush, Command Performance, Virtual Assassin, The Alternate, The Taking of Beverly Hills, The Last Hour, and No Contest, respectively), this time they try a hockey rink. Powers Boothe steals the show as the evildoer who looks like a dapper Oliver Stone. The whole thing is very competently and professionally directed, and it's standard action fare for the most part, with a few standout scenes and creatively-staged deaths that help endear the movie to the audience.The fact that it's the Vice President that's in trouble certainly threw us for a loop. But then again, what does the Vice President do, anyway? That's why it's good that Van Damme had kids (and an arena of self-described "Puckheads") to save, because if they had shot the VP, those stakes just aren't high enough. Also, it's good that they were able to get real teams, players, announcers and staff. That added some nice realism, instead of some made-up team like the Pittsburgh....Powers or something. (Though Boothe surely would have enjoyed that). Plus you know one of the baddies is evil because he has a "terrorist earring", and what we dubbed "evil popcorn" makes an appearance.Because it was the 90's, there are some great fashions on display, a character is playing Doom on a PC, Tyler has a mini Super Soaker, and McCord's son is named Tyler. It's a totally 90's name (heh heh). There was a time, not so long ago, that movies like this went to the theater. It seems hard to believe, but it's true. Sudden Death is certainly enjoyable, and will remind you of the action boom of the 90's right before it all went DTV.