Double Impact   Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ara Gelici, Geoffrey Lewis and Andy Armstrong Second Sight Films RRP: £15.99 2NDVD3210 Certificate: 15 Available 19 September 2011

Separated at birth, when their parents were assassinated, Alex and Chad Wagner are reunited in adulthood to track down and revenge their parents…

Double Impact (1991 - 1 hr, 45 min, 12 sec) is an action thriller directed by Sheldon Lettich who co-wrote the piece with Jean-Claude Van Damme (JCVD).

JCVD has ploughed a regular, if not artistically spectacular, career since the mid nineteen eighties. If you were lucky, his films were average, although often they dipped below even this minimum requirement. On the other hand the 'Muscles from Brussels' has a vocal and dedicated fan base, in this way he has much in common with Steven Seagal.

Adolescent males would have loved this when it first came out. With the increase in exposure for martial arts films, such movies started to go up market with exotic locations, better scripts, relatively speaking, and better supporting actors - here we have Bolo Yeung playing the villain.

The idea of JCVD playing twins was never going to be original, but there is something cheesy and enjoyable about this slice of pure corn. It’s not going to win any awards but might be enjoyable with a few mates and beers.

The film is presented in its original aspect ratio with a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track, The print is pretty good for a film of this age. There are no extras on the disc.

5

Charles Packer