Voxitype
Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
Donald Seymour
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Jonah Abbott
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Nexus Engel
Sheesh... this was not one of Van Damme's better films...David S. Goyer has always been a hit-or-miss from the start, but I still can't believe he wrote this crap for one of his first-ever movie industry projects. I guess you had to start somewhere.Burke is a cop who goes to prison as an undercover inmate to investigate a series of inmate murders. His cover is threatened when one of his old busts is taken to the same jail. Throw Van Damme and a hot supervising officer into the mix, and you should have an undeniably fun action gem chock full of helicopter kicks and Van Damage.But it isn't.So what went wrong?The plot twist was a bit clever. That's probably the best thing I can say about this movie. Van Damme at least has some kind of charm about him in most of his movies--that kind of charm that makes you want to see more of an actor, even if his or her acting is terrible at the time (Schwarzenegger is another good example).One of the most annoying things about this movie was the dialogue. It obviously wasn't Goyer's strong suit back then, because in the opening scene, we find out who Van Damme's character is, where he came from, why he's there, and that he isn't a guy who plays by the rules--in three lines of some of the most forced dialogue I've heard in quite a while. Expository dialogue is everywhere in this movie. They even explain the twist and the motivations behind it.The generic music sucks at setting the right tone, sucks at building suspense, and even sucks at being generic. Van Damme's acting is Oscar-worthy, as usual. Then again, his hilariously poor acting skills are not why I watch Van Damme movies. But the reason I watch his movies wasn't present in this one: he's usually fun to watch. Unfortunately, here, he was a bore.
slightlymad22
An in his prime Van Damme is in top form in this routine action flick. Plot In A Paragraph: Tough police officer Lewis Burke (Van Damme) is sent undercover in a maximum security prison, to investigate some mysterious deaths of inmates and guards. On the outside investigative attorney, Amanda Beckett (Cynthia Gibb) poses as his wife, whilst also investigating what is going on. It is routine, it is predictable, it is clichéd and it is poorly acted at times. However there is still fun to be had here, as the action pieces all well done and there is a certain amount of tension. Van Damme is in great shape and acts as well as Van Damme could back then. Cynthia Gibb, who I always enjoy watching on screen looks fantastic and also gives her usual reliable performance. It's a shame she disappeared in to TV movies in the 1990's after this movie, as I have not seen her in anything since.
Sandcooler
Let me cut right to the chase here: the only reason to watch this movie is The Sandman. The poor guy barely gets to be in this, but when he gets his moment of glory he totally delivers. The Sandman is one of the most ridiculous villains I've ever seen, and therefor also one of the most entertaining. When he shows up the movie immediately looks better, because up until then there really isn't much going on. Van Damme investigates some mysterious murders in a prison, but it's pretty obvious what's going on so the moment where you're supposed to gasp at who's behind everything doesn't work. Also, while it's a good thing Van Damme is less of an egomaniac than Steven Seagal and actually lets himself get hit once in a while, this movie pushes it too far to the other side. Van Damme takes about a thousand punches throughout this movie and is on the ground for most of the running time, in fact he only wins the end fight (talk about a spoiler!) by dumb luck/opponent. Obviously this makes more sense than a fighting machine taking down dozens of prisoners at a time, but who the hell wants a Van Damme movie to make sense? "Death Warrant" gets a pass because again, The Sandman is great, but it definitely isn't Van Damme's best.
primevalsoup
People are dying in prison so, rather than a sudden government inspection or closing it down and investigating the causes, or even examining the bodies, someone decided that the best approach would be to send in an undercover policemen posing as an inmate. That's how much the police force cares about the people it puts away. It can't bare to see them come to harm. It would rather risk the life of one of its own, knowing full well that if discovered he will surely be horridly killed.But this is just what the audience knows from near the start. The real plot is described below (and spoiled): Once upon a time, in the 1980s, a brilliant doctor figured out a way of preserving donated organs at fridge/room temperatures for ages in some weird pink jelly stuff. But rather than write up his findings in Nature, the Lancet or the New England Journal, he just sat on this for years. Exactly which organisation funded his research and then did not care that he did not disclose what he was up to to anyone remains a mystery. Perhaps it was the Pablo Escobar Heart Foundation, or the FARC Guerilla Gorilla to Human Transplant Institute. Then, in 1990 or thereabouts, some rich guy approached this doctor (who was now working in a prison), somehow knowing he was an expert in organ transplant, asking him for an organ. Because organ regulations and murder investigations in the US were quite weak in those days, no one realised that a prisoner was mysteriously murdered and had also had his liver removed. So this doctor realised he could make loads of money knocking off prisoners and doing this again and again.There is also fun with Van Damme - no guard reverse round house kick - fighting, and disappearing ninja bad guys who like to stand in risky positions (like in front of an open furnace they just opened up for no reason), and fickle prisoners that keep changing their minds about murdering someone.
