Movie
Sudden Death (1995)
Of all the Die Hard scenario movies I’ve seen, Sudden Death is certainly one of the crazier ones, but undeniably fun. The premise was hardly original even back in the 1990s: a lone hero trapped in a building with some nasty bad guys, and the only person who can save the day.
In this case the hero is Darren McCord played by Jean Claude Van Damme (who was still starring in mainstream movies back then), and the setting is a National Hockey League Stanley cup finals game in Pittsburgh. The Vice President just happens to be a Penguins fan, so the criminals take advantage and infilitrate the event disguised as employees. Before the even game starts the bad buys occupy the VIP box and demand the VP transfer lots of money from secret accounts before the game ends. Naturally a dramatic late goal ties the contest and buys some much needed sudden death overtime.
It’s an overused storyline, but Sudden Death manages to inject some originality. The villain death scenes are all suitably over the top, often involving Darren using his skills as a fireman, a job he quit after a young girl tragically died. Makeshift weapons include a flamethrower – really a water pistol filled with flammable liquid – and a dart gun fire extinguisher.
There’s also a totally crazy sequence towards the end where Darren dresses up as a Pittsburgh Penguins player and skates onto the rink. Heck, he even manages to make a dramatic save. Then a helicopter falls vertically through the open stadium roof and explodes on the ice. But the fight with the “killer penguin” – a henchwoman in a mascot costume – is the standout scene. And despite her frustratingly early exit from events, I simply had to include this villainess in my ranking list.
Villainess
Carla (Faith Minton)
The actress has a wrestling and stunts background, so looks the part of the brutish henchwoman. She certainly makes for an intimidating choice and is convincing in fight scenes, compared to the usual femme fatale who looks totally out of place in a criminal gang.
Other than her dramatic fight scene, Carla doesn’t get a lot of screen time. And her first two kills – the real mascot Joan (who later turns up dead in a closet) and a woman who gets suspicious in the restroom – both occur offscreen. It’s Darren’s daughter Emily who stumbles across the dead witness when she leaves her seat after an argument with her brother. Before Carla can silence the girl, she flees only to be captured by the henchwoman moments later.
Emily gets to witness Carla’s cold bloodiness when the villainess shoots a Secret Service agent in the head in a corridor (after he understandably mistakes Carla for a guy) and puts several bullets in his chest just to finish him off. The villainess has already demonstrated she has no problem murdering a child, and only an empty pistol clip saves Emily from execution. After delivering the young hostage to the main bad guy, he sends Carla to find her father.
This doesn’t take long as Darren is waiting in the kitchen. He’s already suspicious when he sees Emily’s discarded baseball cap and Carla’s lies are very unconvincing. So the hero is alert to the danger, and when he sees a shadow of Carla drawing a gun, he’s able to disarm her.
The fight scene between Darren and the “killer penguin” in the kitchen is a long one, and lasts about three minutes. While the choice of costume for Carla is bizarre, the padding offers a lot of protection and Darren’s attacks do little damage. The villainess is also skilled in martial arts, and lands quite a few blows of her own. Kitchens are always a great place for fights because there’s always sharp cleavers and boiling fat to use. And they do get used, along with everything else from trays to patato mashers to meat cutters.
Eventually Darren adopts the videogame approach and goes for his opponent’s weak spot. The hero pours spicy food in the mascot’s beak where the eye holes are, disorintating Carla to gain the uppe rhand. It wouldn’t be appropriate for such a tough woman to go down too easily and so Carla gets a great death scene when Darren kicks her onto a processing machine. Then some fabric gets caught and we see the henchwoman strangled as the hero watches on.
Video Review
Honourable Mentions
Theme: Van Damme
Timecop (1994) – Fielding (Gloria Reuben)
This is a mainstream Van Damme movie about a time travelling policeman that’s mostly set in modern times. Among the bad guys is a henchwoman with one decent scene and relatively little screen time. Sarah Fielding is an Internal Affairs agent working with the hero. Except she isn’t, because she’s really in the pocket of a corrupt US senator. Not sure why the traitor is that shocked when the lead bad guy murders someone in cold blood.
Fielding gets a pretty brief fight with the hero. She beats up Walker in a one-sided encounter, before he drops the chivalrous ‘won’t hit a woman’ act and knocks her down with one punch. The senator shoots Fielding just to show how nasty he is, and the repentent traitor gets a reflective scene in hospital before another baddie kills her.
Eventually the timeline is reset and Fielding becomes a good girl, so none of that ever happened. An honourable mention, nevertheless.
Kill’em All (2017) – Almira (Mila Kali)
Perhaps the ultimate “one scene wonder”, Almira is about the only decent thing about this direct to video actioner. She’s an assassin / mercenary who gets her own establishing flashback scene like the other baddies. This has the sexy killer – posing as a prostitute – show off a fair amount of skin. The beautiful killer uses a blade-on-a-rope disguised as jewelry to stab a crime boss in the chest, leap over his chair, and garotte him (which she clearly enjoys). Not done yet, Almira takes down two bodyguards hand to hand (or should that be legs to neck?).
A terrific beginning with so much promise, but what follows is terrible. Hardly any action and a silly plot about Van Damme against the hit squad in a hospital, all told in flashback by a nurse. The same woman supposedly has martial arts experience, but you wouldn’t know it from the badly done fight scenes. Then there’s a lame drawn out – almost comical – strangulation as the heroine defeats Almira in a completely implausible fight.
Except the “nurse” is really an operative or assassin herself (the explanation is vague here), and her witness account is inaccurate. The real death scene – shown later on – has the impostor kill Almira with a much quicker neck snap. So a slight improvement, but not much.
Derailed (2002) – Galina Konstantin (Laura Elena Harring)
Another low budget action flick with Van Damme (he’s done quite a few), this actually has three female villains, though two are rather disappointing. The extended honourable mention goes to the anti-heroine thief who helps the good guys despite her own self-serving agenda. A stealth expert who knows some martial arts, Galina ends up being a far more charismatic character than this movie deserves.
Instead of main hero Jacques Kristoff, the female cat burglar gets the honour of featuring during the opening credits. In between the title cards, we’re treated to a heist sequence with the hi-tech operative deceiving guards in Slovakia and breaking into a supposedly secure facility. After three minutes of short thievery clips and some fancy gadget use, Galina acquires a metal box marked with a biohazard symbol. It’s a fair bit later until we find out the vials inside hold a smallpox viral strain, and before that there’s the matter of escaping the authorities.
Jacques is given the job of escorting Galina to Germany by a shady contact. She has a cover as a theatrical performer, and even does her own wire stunt to get the drop on Jacques and evade a small army of troops. More acrobatics with a light show as a backdrop, and Van Damme finally gets some action. The exit route is a train (you probably guessed that from the title), and Galina disguises herself as a blonde leading to a nervous moment when a sentry inspects her ID. The sexy thief also tries to seduce Jacques in the cabin, but he’s wise enough – and devoted to his wife – to refuse her advances.
That doesn’t stop the spouse and children (who have no idea Jacques is an agent) from paying a surprise visit. Pretty soon the wife discovers Galina and draws the obvious – though incorrect – conclusion, much to the thief’s apparent amusement. She and the other passengers soon have much more to worry about when armed mercenaries take over the train and come after Galina and her mysterious package. These are cookie cutter villains who murder unarmed civilians to demonstrate their nastiness, led by a bland character called Mason.
Jacques and Galina both escape, setting up the usual Die Hard scenario. The thief does some more acrobatic moves and takes out a guy before she runs into Jacques and we learn about the virus. The lead villain has a lover accomplice called Natasha who’s no less mean, and after some background smirks the inevitable cat fight with Galina happens. Jacques fights a man at the same time, but instead of annoying cuts between fights we get a bizarre split screen showdown. Too bad the women only exchange a few blows and it’s all over in thirty seconds.
Then there’s a scuffle and a vial shatters, contaminating the train. What follows is a convoluted mess with poor action, bad special effects and passengers looking gloomy as the virus spreads. The main baddie kills Natasha for her incompetence (so much for love), which leaves Galina – who has no qualm seducing Mason to get on his good side – and the unnamed female terrorist who Jacques disposes of far too easily. Galina gets handcuffed to a pipe but escapes when the lights go out. It’s difficult to see what happens with the gloomy camerawork, but Galina manages to grab the remaining vials and escape.
From there it’s a predictable finish with Galina ill with smallpox and sidelined for the final action scenes. Van Damme saves the day of course, and all the passengers are miraculously cured. As for Galina, she goes back to thievery and pulls off a (sadly low-tech) heist at the very end.
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