Review of In Hell (2003) by Paul F — 11 Oct 2004

Despite the title and box (proclaiming "VAN DAMME IN HELL"), this isn't some wacky Little Nicky-esque tale in which the Muscles from Brussels faces off with a horde of poorly made-up demons, climaxing in a battle with Satan himself, played by, of course, Jean Claude Van Damme again. No, it's just Jean Claude going to Russian prison after killing the man responsible for the muder of his wife. Ah well.

"Hey now," you're saying, "Didn't Jean Claude Van Damme already make a crappy prison movie?".

Why yes, wise viewer. A good thirteen years before, Van Damme was fighting off gangs, shivs and anal rape in [i]Death Warrant[/i]. But that was different, because he was undercover then. This has slightly less plot, and it's in Russia, and it involves pit fighting (much like Van Damme's other 1990 film, [i]Lionheart[/i]), so it's an entirely original film.

([i]Lionheart[/i], by the way, is one of those movie titles that MUST be screamed when said out loud. Just saying "Lionheart" is for the weak. Real film nerds scream [b][i]LIONHEAAAAAAAARRRRTT![/i] [/b]at the top of their lungs, like it's done in the trailer and film itself. Then you're living the dream.).

Anyway, after a taught (and pretty good) first fifteen minutes or so, our hero ends up behind bars. He befriends a nice American chap (probably based on Billy Hayes of [i]Midnight Express[/i] fame) and a wheelchair-bound con, though he quickly becomes the bane of the Russian mafia that controls the prison. He's soon sent to solitary after a fight, where he refuses to eat until he's visited by a magical bug that reminds him of his wife and convinces him to eat his soup.

I'll let you read the last sentence of that again. That's the cool thing about the internet. You can read the same thing over and over again, and it's still the same thing, and it still sounds just as silly. I'll move on now, having allowed the magical flashback-giving bug to sink fully into your head.

Anyway, he's thrown into a new cell, and we're warned that his new cellmate has killed his last three roomies, so we know that the two of them will be quick friends. It turns out the strong, silent new cellmate is actually a writer who craves silence, and since Van Damme can barely speak his native language much less English, they get along royally.

Van Damme (like all of his films, his character has a name, but it's pretty irrelevant) becomes a pit fighter for the warden, soon reverting to a savage state which involves lots of hair. Then the magical bug warns him about not being true to himself, his wife shows up as a ghost (!?), there's a prison riot, a little anal rape (not to Van Damme--presumably all the prisoners have seen his films and had too much of his ass already) and a few decent fight scenes before the okayish ending.

Director Ringo Lam, once considered a hotshot Asian action director and now resigned to directing, well, [i]this[/i], does his best with the look of the film, giving it a grimy feel, but the film is never really as intense as it thinks it is. It's all been done before, in better prison films, either with more drama ([i]The Shawshank Redemption),[/i] insanity [i](Penitentiary III[/i]) or gleeful exploitation ([i]Caged Heat[/i]) or a combination of all three ([i]Riot[/i]), so all this can offer is Van Damme kicking occasional ass. And occasional it is--it's nearly an hour before the guy even wins a fight.

[i]In Hell[/i] is a good enough film to be dissappointing that it's not a very good film. The supporting cast is good, and the pacing isn't bad (it helps that there's minimal dialogue), but there's just no real reason to check it out, outside of being a Van Damme completist or having a fascination with weird CGI bugs.