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Black
Eagle
Directed by Eric Karson, 1988
In Black Eagle
Jean Claude Van Damme had barely begun making a name for
himself. He was less well-known than Sho Kosugi, with whom
he had to share top billing.The plot is a nonsense
actioner between Kosugi as a CIA op and JCVD as his KGB
counterpart.
What is of interest is Van Damme's interpreation of a Red
bad guy. This was not his first appearance as a Russian
fighter. In No Retreat No Surrender he was Ivan, a Russian
mafia enforcer. Here he is Andrei, a KGB operative who is
battling Kosugi for a secret weapon.
When Van Damme plays the heavy, he is somehow more
threatening, more lethal than when he is the punching bag
good guy. One of his best moments in this or any of his
other actioners occurs when he is not fighting at all. He
is seen as merely talking to his wife who is genuinely
concerned for his safety. Their verbal interaction marks
him as distinctly human as they ponder his looming fate.
Further his aggressive fight scenes with Kosugi are first
rate. Van Damme's untimely demise with a ship's propeller
raises some unexpected sighs of sympathy. Black Eagle is a
watchable early slice of a very young JCVD as he proves
that given the right script, he can deliver acting on cue
with the same verve as one of his patented roundhouse
kicks.
Black Eagle is one of the first Van Damme movies, so we
see a young Van Damme in this movie (28 years old) and
he's in great shape. |
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