In a violent and corrupt prison, decorated cop Louis Burke must infiltrate the jail to find answers to a number of inside murders. What he finds is a struggle of life and death tied in to his own past. In an abandoned house, detective Louis Burke confronts a maniac called the Sandman. Although the Sandman nearly kills Burke, Burke manages to stop him with a bullet. Sixteen months later, Burke joins a task force put together by the governor to investigate a series of unexplained deaths in the Harrison Penitentiary. While Burke poses as an inmate, attorney Amanda Beckett acts the role of his wife. In the penitentiary, Burke is forced to survive in an environment so dismal and filthy that it makes a public restroom in New York City look like a room in a five star hotel. Burke does succeed in befriending a few of the inmates, including Hawkins and Priest, who help him with the investigation. More inmates are mysteriously murdered. Burke's cell-mate is killed, and prison guard DeGraff puts Burke in solitary confinement, where he's interrogated and beaten. As if that's not enough, the Sandman ends up at Harrison. As it turns out, the prisoners are being murdered for their body organs. Back on the outside, Beckett attends a party given by Vogler, the state's attorney general. Just as she's preparing to tell him about the murders at the prison, Beckett receives a call from her assistant, who identifies Vogler's henchman Keane as the man behind the murders, which also involve Dr. Gottesman, the surgeon who harvests the organs to be sold to people who are in desperate need of them. The assistant's suspicions are confirmed when Vogler tries to kill Beckett. Burke begins an escape from the penitentiary, pursued by the Sandman and hundreds of angry inmates who have been set free and armed with the knowledge that Burke is a cop. Burke and the Sandman have brutal showdown in which Burke tries to get the Sandman out of the way so he can go after Vogler, Keane, and Gottesman. Louis Burke (Jean Claude-Van Damme) is a cop who is assigned with the task of going undercover in a violent prison whereby inmates and guards are being killed. Burke must try to find out who is being killed, why they are being killed and ultimately who is behind the killings. Things go from bad to worse for Burke when he learns that someone on the outside is assisting the guards and inmates in carrying out these crimes.<br/><br/>Like I said in my summary the story here is OK and serviceable, but it's still rather run-of-the-mill and whilst Death Warrant never does anything truly bad it's also a film that it's really hard to care about whilst watching it. Perhaps part of the problem is the approach that has been used here; a lot of JCVD films are done in a more tongue-in-cheek manner which, more often than not, make some of the weaker stories that little bit more digestible. In Death Warrant, the director has used a more deadpan and serious approach to the material making the whole film feel rather dour and dull. As a result of this the film lacks any real tension or excitement - the only time the film gets close to either of these things are the scenes involving The Sandman - this is largely thanks to a wonderful performance by Patrick Kilpatrick. In fact if the Sandman had a larger role in the film then I'm sure I would have enjoyed this more than I did. The only other person to make any sort of impression on the picture was Abdul Salaam El Razzac as The Priest - at least he tried to bring some fun to the picture.<br/><br/>The rest of the acting is so-so at best; Van Damme isn't a great actor, but in this film he was really poor and looked as though he was reading his lines from an autocue. I would like to say that he made up for this in the action scenes, but even they aren't up to the same standard as those from films such as Bloodsport or Kickboxer. Cynthia Gibb is also bland and adds next to nothing to the picture. The supporting cast mostly play ridiculous clichés, but I suppose that was all that was asked of them.<br/><br/>All in all, Death Warrant is a pretty poor offering, but with little tweaks here and there it could have been a pretty good film. If we'd have had more of the Sandman and a bit more humour then I think that these things would have been the difference between this film being a good film as opposed to a below average film. Sadly, for me, Death Warrant is definitely the latter of the two. Canadian Mountie Louis Burke is sent on a mission undercover into a US maximum security prison as a prisoner to investigate the deaths of several prisoners. Once there he discovers an underground scheme by the corrupt prison authorities to kill & harvest prisoners for their organs. When they discover Burke, the black marketeers send in the Sandman, a violent killer who Burke had previously arrested, to kill him.<br/><br/>Jean-Claude Van Damme started his career in the late 1980s, making films such as BLOODSPORT, KICKBOXER & LIONHEART / WRONG BET, where he would participate in some kind of underground fighting tournament. These films limited his career until Albert Pyun cast him in CYBORG, which was not a great film or even a good one, but which broadened his appeal to action fans.<br/><br/>"Death Warrant" is perhaps the first mainstream action film that Van Damme had enjoyed success with. As far as films go, "Death Warrant" is an action film with horror undertones, with its almost superhuman serial killer, the Sandman (played by Patrick Kilpatrick, who gets the chance to go full-on with his role), a psycho who proves to be one of the toughest villains Van Damme has ever faced (along with Dolph Lundgren & Vincent Klyn). The film's story is not as well sketched out as it should be, but remains passable (if you ever get the feeling that it was written by a teenager, you would be right – Goyer wrote this when he was 18!).<br/><br/>The acting is pretty standard, although special mention must be made of Robert Guillaume as the seasoned black inmate who befriends Van Damme, Art LaFleur as the corrupt prison warden & Abdul Salaam El Razzac, a guy who will give you the creeps with his strange eyes.<br/><br/>As usual, the film's main attraction is watching Van Damme spin-kick his way through several inmates, most notably one scene where he takes on a Hispanic prisoner & his homey Bruce, "who likes to kick the crap out of white trash". Watch as he VanDamminates both knuckleheads with nothing but his fierce determination, martial arts skills & a broken mop handle (although Bruce does have the edge by brandishing a metal chain – sort of like a contest of "scissors, paper, rock"; or more like "sticks, chains & legs"). "Death Warrant", with its underground practices & tough inmates, most closely resembles "The Story of Ricky", that infamous Hong Kong gorefest, although Van Damme does not get so much as a scratch (he does take a wrench to the chest & nearly gets impaled on a wood lathe).<br/><br/>At the end of the day, I would recommend "Death Warrant" to action fans, Van Dammists & those who like prison films. Just don't ask where that kidney came from.
Janalet replied
295 weeks ago