Arguably the best of the slew of Die Hard copycat movies that followed the original John McTiernan film, Sudden Death sees action director Peter Hyams revitalise the trapped-hero conventions with muscular direction and some tounge-in-cheek humour. Jean Claude Van Damme is fire-fighter Darren McCord, who uses his time off to take his kids to an ice-hockey game. But with terrorists planning to detonate the stadium at the end of the match, McCord swings into action, getting on the ice to save a penalty and force extra-time, beating up a giant penguin mascot, and defeating the nefarious plans of Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe). Originally intended as an Airplane! –style parody, Sudden Death plays it enjoyably straight and transcends the over-subscribed genre with ease.
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