Death Warrant (1990) MGM/Action RT: 89 minutes Rated R (violence. language, brief rear nudity) Director: Deran Sarafian Screenplay: David S. Goyer Music: Gary Chang Cinematography: Russell Carpenter Release date: September 14, 1990 (US) Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Robert Guillaume, Cynthia Gibb, George Dickerson, Art LaFleur, Patrick Kilpatrick, Abdul Salaam El-Razzac, Armin Shimerman, Joshua Miller, Larry Hankin, Hank Woessner, George Jenesky, Jack Bannon, Paulo Tocha, Kamel Krifa, Al Leong. Box Office: $16.8M (US)
Rating: ***
The Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie Death Warrant might not have seen the light of day if not for MGM. Originally titled Dusted, it was supposed to be released by Cannon. Unfortunately, they went bankrupt during post-production forcing them to turn it and their other remaining titles (including Delta Force 2) over to MGM. They renamed it Death Warrant and released it to theaters in September ’90 after some haggling over which studio logo should appear at the beginning.
JCVD plays Burke, a Canadian cop who goes undercover as an inmate in a California prison to investigate a series of murders. He’s part of a task force organized by the governor and state attorney general Tom Vogler (Dickerson, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown). He’s to report his findings to liaison Amanda Beckett (Gibb, Youngblood) who will be posing as his wife.
Burke, in the guise of a friend of the most recent victim, starts asking questions. Nobody is willing to answer them. They’re afraid of something or somebody. The cop continues to poke around with some help from an older inmate named Hawkins (Guillaume, Wanted Dead or Alive) who he saved from getting killed earlier and another prisoner everybody calls Priest (Razzac, Malcolm X). He’s the guy who can get anything you want for a price.
Although it’s supposed to be an undercover operation, somebody high up knows about Burke and wants him silenced for good. This person arranges for a vicious serial killer known as “The Sandman” (Kirkpatrick, Class of 1999) to be transferred in. Burke has a history with the psycho; he’s the one who captured him. This throws a monkey wrench into the investigation. With his life in mortal danger, Burke must fight his way out or end up on a slab.
The 80s and 90s were great decades for action movies. I’m talking about real action movies, not the bloated, mega-budgeted assaults on the senses featuring superheroes or giant alien robots. I’m talking about the ones starring legitimate tough guys like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Norris and JCVD. Death Warrant is a fine example of the type of action film I mean. It has a simple plot, many fight scenes and a cool cast of familiar faces like George Jenesky (aka Francis “Psycho” Sawyer from Stripes) and the ubiquitous Al Leong (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard). Art LaFleur (Cobra), always a welcome presence, co-stars as the sadistic head guard who might be involved in the killings. The odd man out here is Joshua Miller (River’s Edge) as a nerdy “computer cowboy” who lends his expertise while hitting on Amanda at every opportunity. I guess you could call the hormonal teen comic relief, but he’s not a perfect fit. He feels out of place here.
Director Deran Sarafian (Gunmen), working from a script by David S. Goyer (the Blade trilogy), keeps things moving along at a nice clip. It’s a good thing he does. Otherwise, it might give audiences a chance to think about the plot and nobody wants that. Like any action director worth his weight in popcorn, Sarafian just wants the audience to have a good time rooting for the star. He largely succeeds in that endeavor with Death Warrant. It’s goofy and definitely doesn’t stand up to any amount of scrutiny, but it sure is fun.
We all know JCVD is no thespian. Hell, he’s barely an actor. He’s a martial artist, a gifted one at that, who works in films. He’s at his best when he’s kicking ass which is precisely what he does in Death Warrant. He kicks a lot of it. His fight with Leong is brief but memorable. I mention it because he has a more convincing relationship with this opponent that he does with Gibb. I didn’t buy their budding romance for a second. There’s no chemistry there.
Gibb is a decent actress. She made a few movies- Youngblood (1986), Modern Girls (1986), Malone (1987), Short Circuit 2 (1988) and the TV adaptation of the musical Gypsy (1993)- before not going on to stardom. She’s okay in Death Warrant, but hardly what I’d call exceptional. Guillaume is very good as Burke’s reluctant ally. He says he owes the man nothing for saving his life early on, but he still sticks his neck out. I like Kilpatrick a lot. He’s a great villain who ranks right alongside the best of them (e.g. Brian Thompson, Brion James and Billy Drago). His climactic fight against JCVD is awesome.
Death Warrant is a good, gritty action movie that won’t let down fans of the star or the genre. It’s the kind of movie that used to play as the co-feature with a bigger movie back when cinemas showed double features. It’s among the last of a dying breed.
