Basketball superstar Dennis Rodman stars as a hip Interpol agent attempting to defeat the deadly plans of a crazed arms dealer.
Not many people are aware that the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Double Team, which co-stars NBA legend Dennis Rodman and Hollywood legend Mickey Rourke, has a spin-off. Simon Sez is the movie. Ok, so this isn’t “officially” a sequel or continuation of Double Team, but it’s damn close. Rodman is introduced as he sits atop a souped-up motorbike (which he also rode in Double Team), and his character is so underwritten that it’s as if the writer knows you’ve seen Doube Team, and the audience can do the work of filling in the blanks based on what they’ve already seen before.
This is confused storytelling at its most annoying. The production values are on par with a few nicely handled stunt sequences, but that can’t make up for the perplexing narrative that is never clear on motives, consequences, or logic. Dane Cook, in one of his earliest roles, makes a good Jim Carrey impression, but those sparse moments of humor from Cook are overshadowed by the extremely unassuming antics of Ricky Hall and the late John Pinette, playing the roles of tech-savvy monks. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.
Movie stardom was not to be for Rodman; those championship rings should soothe that heartbreak, but I’m glad he was given the opportunity. He’s not the problem with the movie. A stronger filmmaker would have streamlined the script into a coherent state. A better producer would have realized this was a project not worth making. The reality is that Simon Sez exists, and it’s better than STEEL.
Directed by: Kevin Alyn Elders
Written by: Moshe Diamant, Rudy Cohen, Andrew Miller
Starring: Dennis Rodman, Dane Cook, John Pinette
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