Product: Replicant (2001)
Rating: 3.0
Off the Mark
In Hollywood parlance this is a "high concept" movie. Any one of the major studios, had they given this the green light, would have thrown tons o' bucks at it and hired the best at all levels. Unfortunately, that didn't happen here and it's frustrating to watch as a result.It pretty much starts with a lacking script. Michael Rooker, on the eve of his retirement as a police detective, just misses his chance to nab serial killer Van Damme. He retires but is wooed back into the game by the FBI who has a program whereby they have cloned the serial killer (through a strand of hair) in the hopes he will think like the original and lead them to the killer. This is a test to see if they can pull the same thing off with terrorists.This is a tough nut to crack story-wise and this writing just didn't do enough to make me believe the situation. Then you have the replicant Van Damme who is fully adult but doesn't even have the skills of a child. Now we need to watch his development. Again, the writing wasn't skilled enough to pull it off. Then there's the relationship he needs to develop with Rooker who can only see him as a serial killer and not as an innocent who can develop into a good person. This is all very clunky and misses the mark. Then, of course, the two Van Dammes need to meet and the final murder thwarted. Clunk, clunk, clunk.Ringo lam is a fine director, and his work with Van Damme in "Maximum Risk" was very good, but here he struggles with this lousy script and there's no way out. If you can get past the ridiculous premise then you still need to tackle the other issues which well could have been done.The production values are good enough and Van Damme does a surprisingly good job playing the two roles, but at every turn, I saw what could have been done but wasn't and it just made me want to spit. This hurt to watch, not because it was horribly bad, but because it was so close to being good.