Film Review: Replicant (2001)

over 1 year ago (Edited)

(source: tmdb.org)

Jean-Claude Van Damme became a film star because of his immense martial arts abilities, but even from the early stages of his career, he was trying to prove himself as an actor. One of those experiments was the dual role played in the 1991 film Double Impact. Ten years later, he repeated a similar role in Replicant, a science fiction action film directed by Ringo Lam.

The plot is set in Seattle, where a vicious serial killer nicknamed “Torch” (played by Van Damme) preys on women. Police detective Jake Riley (played by Michael Rooker) has spent three years trying to catch him and, frustrated with the lack of any results, decides to retire from the police. Soon afterward, he is contacted by a mysterious federal agency that would hire him as a consultant on a top-secret project. It turns out that the US government has mastered human cloning technology, and one of the results of those experiments is a clone produced by DNA extracted from hair samples “Torch” had left at the crime scenes. The clone (or “replicant”) is not only physically identical to “Torch” but also possesses all the abilities and even a telepathic connection with his “brother”. He is given to Riley, who wants to use him to finally catch “Torch”. The only problem is that the replicant has the body of a 40-year-old man, but his mind is still at the level of a child.

Van Damme was never a great actor, so it isn’t surprising that in Replicant he is easily overshadowed by the more experienced and talented Michael Rooker. His performance is also affected by noticeable effects of ageing and alleged cocaine abuse in previous years. On the other hand, roles of mentally impaired people seem to suit Van Damme well, and, like in most of his films, he succeeds in making the audience sympathetic to his character. Much worse than Van Damme’s performance is the script by Lawrence David Riggins and Les Weddon, which employs too many clichés in its human cloning plot and never bothers to explain why the US government would waste a top-secret advanced technological achievement on a petty serial killer instead of using it against hostile world leaders and governments. On the other hand, Hong Kong director Ringo Lam, who had worked with Van Damme five years earlier in Maximum Risk, does more than a solid job and manages to make this film slightly different with a mostly bleak atmosphere. The low budget, which forced his characters to chase a killer within the confines of a single city, also helps with additional realism, although the violence is somewhat more explicit than in most Hollywood mainstream films. Although disliked by critics and distributed only through home video in many countries (like the USA), Replicant represents a mostly satisfying experience even for those viewers who aren’t big fans of Van Damme.

RATING: 5/10 (++)