People are voting emotionally.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A Reuniting of Peter Hyams and Van Damme, director and star of Timecop.Sudden Death is one of the best action thrillers of 1995.Elaborate stunts, go-go-go direction from Peter Hyams, plus ass-kicking and surprise goalie action from Van Damme.Van Damme races against time, trying to thwart Powers Boothe and defuse all the bombs. In the hands of director Peter Hyams, this is a pleasure for all action-movie junkies. An above average action thriller loaded with jaw-dropping stunts and special effects, and strong in production values.10/10

A strange movie. I mean really strange.Die Hard was done in 1988. In 1992 Steven Seagal did Under Siege and to be frank it was an awesome film. In 1994 the venerable JCVD did what is possibly the best film of his own (post-Bloodsport) career, Timecop.And then we have 1995. My best guess is that a producer figured the world could use one more Die Hard/Under Siege clone, and that JCVD should star in it.The same genius figured it should be done on a shoestring budget, and set in a hockey arena where the editor could "fill space" by inter-cutting scenes from the game.The main "character" is a fire Marshall who (best guess on this backstory) had a JCVD fetish and studied MMA between fire drills.As a stand-alone film, it is pretty awful. The plot is dumb. The hockey is distracting. The fight scenes are wretched. JCVD looks mainly lost.The good news is a classic "trope" where (not making this up) the hero, trying to avoid the assassins chasing him, decides the best strategy is to dress up as the goalie in a Stanley Cup game and wander out onto the ice. Where the coach puts him in the net! It is so outrageous it almost works! And Powers Boothe knows more about playing bad guys than even real bad guys.

*SPOILERS* Sudden Death (1995) is a good 90's fun action film, that has flaws and many problems in it. Is the second Van Damme movie that was directed from Peter Hyams and a decent action Die Hard movie, definitely of one of my action fun favorite Van Damme movies and mostly because I love Die Hard movies and a Die Hard style flicks like Sudden Death. It is a really shame how underrated this action movie flick is. I never get tired of it or bored with it. This is the second time I actually recognize that Van Damme's character is a Canadian is this action Die Hard Flick. The first time his character was a Canadian was in Death Warrant when he played a Mounty cop. In here he plays a Canadian disgrace Fireman now turning a fire building inspector who takes on a group of terrorists holding the Vice President and others hostages including his daughter during the seventh game of the NHL Stanley Cup finals. Still Van Damme's decent action movie in my opinion."Terror Goes Into Over-Time" Sudden Death is a 1995 American action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Darren McCord, a Pittsburgh firefighter who during a Stanley Cup finals game finds himself trying to save his daughter and the Vice-President, who have been taken hostage by a team of terrorists led by former government operative Joshua Foss (Powers Boothe). The film was directed by Peter Hyams from a story written by the wife of the then owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The majority of the film was shot during the 1994–95 NHL lockout in the Civic Arena, the actual arena of the Pittsburgh Penguins. That is the basic plot it is about a an ex fireman fighting terrorist in the hockey arena. I liked Whittni Wright and Ross Malinger who played Emily and Taylor, Darren's children, they were great.This movie how ever has a lot of mayor problems, problems that I do have with the film. Which is also one of the reasons it wasn't my favorite Van Damme movie as a child. I think this is the first time I do not see Van Damme's martial arts and his spine kicks. I hated the twist! Dorian Harewood should have played the good guy and not the bad guy at the end. The fight choreographer still has horribly done fight doubles/stand-ins during the fights, which are very noticeable and take away from the fight scenes. You can easily tell, that this is not Van Damme in so many of the fight scenes. The pacing is still not that good. Too many useless stuff like the cops outside who weren't interesting. The 'good luck' that the main character got throughout (the gun shooting but "Oh, it's Empty", the game going into Sudden Death at the last couple of seconds so this No Explosion) and etc. made me "Call Bullshit" quite a few times, making that kind of stuff not enjoyable, and this took me out of the flick quite a few times. A couple of nice explosions and a good role by Van Damme & Powers Boothe, doesn't make a great movie'.I like this movie but honestly I think Double Impact and even Kickboxer are better movie than this. I like the Hockey game and That Van Damme's character does everything in his power to safe the hostages including all people in the hockey arena. But personally to me this movie did not felt a real Die Hard movie. I think Die Hard is still better movie. A good ideas was also used in this movie including nice shootouts. The helicopter crashed in the hockey arena with Joshua Foss in it. Van Damme's character realized right away what happened and try to spoiled the terrorists plans. I like that he was looking for the bombs. I like that the movie was set in Pittsburgh and not New York or Washington D.C./: Those are one of the reasons why I like this movie and the rating, this movie get's by me is a 7, the ideas in this movie very terribly. As a Van Damme fan I like it.7/10 Grade: C- Studio: Universal Pictures, Shattered Productions Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Boothe, Raymond J. Barry, Whittni Wright, Ross Malinger, Dorian Harewood, Kate McNeil, Michael Gaston, Audra Lindley, Brian Delate, Faith Minton, Manny Perry, Brian Hutchison Director: Peter Hyams Producers: Howard Baldwin, Moshe Diamant Screenplay: Gene Quintano Story by Karen Elise Baldwin Rated: R Running Time: 1 Hr. 50 Mins. Budget: $35.000.000 Box Office: $64,350,171

Darren McCord (Van Damme) is a sort of down-on-his-luck ex-firefighter from Pittsburgh. To help show he's a good dad, he takes his two kids, Tyler and Emily (Malinger and Wright) to see their beloved Penguins play the Chicago Blackhawks in a big hockey game for the Stanley Cup. As it turns out, the Vice President of the United States (Barry) is also a big hockey fan and in attendance, and a gang of baddies led by the maniacal but smooth Joshua Foss (Boothe) threaten to kill the Vice-Prez, and blow up the arena with all 17,000 people inside if they don't get the money they're asking for. As if that wasn't enough, they've kidnapped Emily and are holding her with the other hostages in one of the luxury boxes. And Hallmark (Harewood) of the secret service doesn't seem to be of much help. So it's up to Darren McCord to try and dismantle all the bombs, save his family, save the Vice-Prez, save the hockey fans, and stop Foss - all single-handedly. Can he do it? The now-classic 90's theme of "DieHardInA" movies is perhaps never better exemplified than here. Tired of accented and/or quirky baddies over-running water treatment plants, biochemical weapons labs, schools, hotels, train tunnels, malls, planes, dams, rock concerts, computer research facilities, buildings, Beverly Hillses, more buildings, and beauty contests (Lethal Tender , Deadly Outbreak, Detention, Crackerjack, Crackerjack 2, Irresistible Force, Strategic Command, Terminal Rush, Command Performance, Virtual Assassin, The Alternate, The Taking of Beverly Hills, The Last Hour, and No Contest, respectively), this time they try a hockey rink. Powers Boothe steals the show as the evildoer who looks like a dapper Oliver Stone. The whole thing is very competently and professionally directed, and it's standard action fare for the most part, with a few standout scenes and creatively-staged deaths that help endear the movie to the audience.The fact that it's the Vice President that's in trouble certainly threw us for a loop. But then again, what does the Vice President do, anyway? That's why it's good that Van Damme had kids (and an arena of self-described "Puckheads") to save, because if they had shot the VP, those stakes just aren't high enough. Also, it's good that they were able to get real teams, players, announcers and staff. That added some nice realism, instead of some made-up team like the Pittsburgh....Powers or something. (Though Boothe surely would have enjoyed that). Plus you know one of the baddies is evil because he has a "terrorist earring", and what we dubbed "evil popcorn" makes an appearance.Because it was the 90's, there are some great fashions on display, a character is playing Doom on a PC, Tyler has a mini Super Soaker, and McCord's son is named Tyler. It's a totally 90's name (heh heh). There was a time, not so long ago, that movies like this went to the theater. It seems hard to believe, but it's true. Sudden Death is certainly enjoyable, and will remind you of the action boom of the 90's right before it all went DTV.