FULL LOVE / THE EAGLE PATH / FRENCHY

[Nathan]

Yeah it isn't mate, somebody I know made it.

[Jox]

Teaser trailer and artwork
http://www.rodin-ent.com/titles/TheEagl ... ePath.html
Somehow kinda reminds me of ICARUS, the trailer editing has some of the same flaws

[Dida]

Jox,

you are in Cannes right? Have you seen The Eagle Path with Jean Claude Van Damme there?
Can you tell us something about it?

[Jox]

Yes I did. Started to write a review, not easy to talk about this film though.

[Dida]

Can't wait to read your review Jox!

[Jox]

Here's my review!

Alright guys, I know you have been waiting for this, so here is my personal review of EAGLE PATH (without "THE" as on the film, copyrighted 2009 by the way). I saw it at the second Cannes market screening last Monday morning at 10am. JC wasn't there but Kristopher presented the film saying how dear this project was to his father who came up with it years ago... This is only my opinion so don't take it for granted.

WARNING FOR POSSIBLE SPOILERS


EAGLE PATH
Review by Jox

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s long awaited sophomore directorial effort (solely written, edited, funded and distributed by himself) finally got a “world premiere” at the Cannes Film Market about a year and half after being produced. Filmed in between “J.C.V.D.” and “Universal Soldier: Regeneration” and originally entitled “Full Love”, “Eagle Path” is a piece as sincere and innocent as its working title suggested it. If this could be a good thing, it might also work against itself, and its “progenitor”.

At a first glance, “Eagle Path” isn’t more no less than an action thriller about an ex-soldier falling in love at first sight with a beautiful mysterious woman and sets out to save her from her high class call-girl condition. Entirely shot and produced in Thailand, the picture should have delivered a gritty noir piece, in the vein of Hong Kong director Johnnie To's thrillers perhaps. It also aims at being a personal and emotional story told in a more artistic way than usual in action movies.

This sounds great, but it's doesn't.

It certainly has the bloody action and gun-play set pieces with the pouring rain and the group of friends teaming up on a vendetta. But it also breathes the personal obsessions and issues of its conflicted and confused day-dreaming star/director. What we can't blame Van Damme though is his sincerity and heart that he put into it. But it might have worked against him. For this project to have worked, it would first have benefited a good fix on the script, to let Van Damme's ideas flourish and be well expressed so that the audience would embark on his journey with him. As such, it seems that the ideas haven't matured enough yet or have been let in an abstract and confused shape, as if they were coming straight out of Van Damme's subconscious, with a writing process that probably was very instinctive (which is rather good creatively, but would have needed to be canalized, clarified and polished). In some way the film suffers from the same autistic/Asberger's Syndrome condition that its hero seems to have. Remember that this is 200% his baby, so he had all the control to make every decision his.

The fights (kicks and punches) and shoot-outs, though few and sparse, are actually pretty effective, bloody and powerful, which makes you wish this was an all action ride. Technically, the cinematography is uneven, but especially hampered by an abusive use of unjustified slow motion in almost half of the shots. The screened print (final? Color corrected?) also wasn't pristine, like if the film stock used seem to have had some accidents, at times looking veiled or flickering on certain shots. I'll pass on the overexposed redundant (and the word is weak) flashbacks that punctuate the film with a metronome regularity. The score, although not electronically composed and recorded, sounds exactly like it, and doesn't suit the mood and atmosphere (at least not matching the ambitions of the piece). The music also covers up a lot of dialogues which are barely understandable at times, the post-production sound has been mixed by a Thai company and I wonder if they actually did the job because the mix is as bad as doing it directly from AVID.

If “J.C.V.D.” was a cinematic UFO, it was done in such a way that it worked for itself, whether you liked it or not. “Eagle Path” is another kind of UFO, but it doesn't seem to be purposely made, and it will attract laughs and boredom from disregardful critics and audiences. Despite the core of the story which resumes to a simplistic Freudian complex, the dialogues are the first example, they either sound bad or weird, and it's hard to tell whether it comes the writing or the bad acting or both. The film is either wrongly cast or the actors not well directed and let loose. Jean-Claude Van Damme gives the best performance, being himself or going berserk in some great moments, but it's a waste not being in the context of a more successful piece. At times the dialogues and situations almost seem to come out from an experimental or new wave film or “nouveau roman”, a bit like Alain Resnais's “Last Year in Marienbad” but here it's not necessarily a good thing.

Fifty years ago, Van Damme might have been counted among the great geniuses of cinema for this, today he's gonna like be make fun of once again. Further proof is demonstrated in the last few minutes of the film where the epilogue is merged with an “experimental” nonsensical and random montage of military archive footage, mushroom clouds, city pedestrians, cheap CGI ecological logos, and last but not least, sperm and a baby birth. It's Jean-Claude Van Damme's illuminated vision of life. Genius, extraordinary, legendary?! Interesting, but try rather heavy and clumsy.

[Dida]

Jox, I have a question for you.

How is the car chase in The Eagle Path?

[Jox]

Yes why?

[Dida]

Well, in the trailer we see a carchase in the movie. Can you tell me how it was. Badly edited, excited or boring......

[Jox]

It's a small car chase like you've seen ten thousand times before no more no less. It's a low budget movie don't expect it to blow your mind.

[Travis]

I see this movie for sale in the streets everywhere. I was thinking about buying it but hopefully it comes to the theater here soon.

[Dida]

Finally a releasedate for The Eagle Path in the UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eagle-Path-DVD- ... 137&sr=1-1

[Jox]

WOW.

Now I'm gonna have a to see this U.F.O. again since VD re-edited it a 101th time since last years Cannes screenings.

[Jox]

Re-shoots to be done in April in Bulgaria with new action scenes (flashbacks? as if there weren't enough already) to be added, and it's re-titled SOLDIERS now... doesn't make much sense, it makes a subplot and backstory the main focus.

[Jox]

New poster