Line #2 Film/SuddenDeath


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6	[[caption-width-right:350:[[{{Tagline}} Action goes into overtime.]]]]
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9	->''This is the story of Sudden Death\
10	Starring Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme\
11	A pretty awesome movie about terrorists and hockey\
12	Jean-Claude Van Damme!''
13	-->-- '''Andy Dwyer''' singing about this movie, ''Series/ParksAndRecreation''
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15	''Sudden Death'' is a 1995 action thriller, directed by Creator/PeterHyams and starring Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme, Creator/PowersBoothe, and Creator/DorianHarewood.
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17	The story is about Darren [=McCord=], a UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}} fire marshal who is on duty during the seventh game of the UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague [[UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup Stanley Cup]] Finals. During the game, he uncovers a terrorist plot to hold its attendees--including his own kids, and the Vice President of the United States--for ransom.
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19	A remake, ''Welcome to Sudden Death'', was released DirectToVideo in September 2020. Directed by Dallas Jackson and with Creator/MichaelJaiWhite in the lead role, it centers around a different sporting event (a basketball game) and features a more comedic take on the plot. It drew largely negative reviews and has seemingly [[FranchiseKiller put the franchise]] [[{{pun}} on ice.]]
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21	----
22	!!Tropes in ''Sudden Death'' include:
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24	* FiveFiveFive: The first three digits of the Civic Arena kitchen's phone number, where Andrew works. One of Foss' goons recites them to Andrew's wife when forcing her to call him while under hostage.
25	* AcceptableBreaksFromReality:
26	** This movie requires you to accept that this game is so interesting that every single person in the stadium - right down to the maintenance workers who are supposed to be behind the scenes and every security guard in the building - are either watching the game or has been compromised. Otherwise there is no way Darren could wander the entire building, which seems empty despite probably being the most occupied building in the city at that time.
27	** Also, before overtime begins the players are shown in the bench. The playoff rules mandate that they should go to the locker room... which in the Penguins case means they would find it riddled with bullets and with some corpses.
28	* AccidentalAthlete: At one point Darren [=McCord=] actually has to ''pretend to be the Pittsburgh Penguins goalie'' to avoid the terrorists who have invaded the arena. He even makes a crucial save to prevent the Blackhawks from winning in regulation.
29	* AlternateHistory: The movie is set in June 1995, the last 3/4 takes places during game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks. It was filmed before the 1994-95 NHL season even started (taking advantage of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994–95_NHL_lockout a lockout]] that made it easy to film at the Penguins' stadium for as long as they wanted.) The two teams that actually played during that season's championship round were the Detroit Red Wings and New Jersey Devils - who even beat the Blackhawks and Penguins respectively during that playoffs (the Wings beating the Blackhawks in the Western Conference Finals, and the Devils beating the Penguins in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, both in 5 games). The Devils swept the Red Wings in 4 games to win the Stanley Cup.
30	* AsHimself: The Penguins' real-life radio announcers (Mike Lange, Paul Steigerwald) and some of their players at the time (Luc Robitaille, Markus Näslund).
31	* BadWithTheBone[=/=]ImprovisedWeapon: Darren to the {{Mook}}'s neck.
32	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Pittsburgh's mayor and his wife, several executives of the mayor and the U.S. Vice President, Andrew the chef and his wife, some Pittsburgh road workers and Civic Arena employees, among other innocent people, died terribly. However, [=McCord=] alone manages to save all of the over 10,000 fans who attended the biggest hockey game of the season, both teams and the broadcast crew, his children, the Vice President, and everyone else alive in the building by pursuing and finally killing Foss in a [[KarmicDeath satisfyingly]] [[HellishCopter grand blaze]], and makes it out injured, but alive. Before Emily is stolen by Foss during the climax, an executive for the VP tells Darren that the VP would like to meet him. After the events of the film, he could have ended up giving Darren a reward or some form of grand recognition for his heroic efforts.]]
33	* CatastrophicCountdown: Once the game is over the BigBad will blow the stadium.
34	* ChekhovsSkill: When he's showing Tyler the Pens' locker room, [=McCord=] has a throwaway line saying he used to be a non-professional hockey goalie. Those old skills come in handy later when he has to [[HiddenInPlainSight hide in plain sight]] out on the ice.
35	* CombatPragmatist: Darren [=McCord=] is a textbook example, as he uses whatever he can get from his surroundings to beat the bad guys. Examples include, but are not limited to: boiling oil, a broken bone, gym equipment, hockey sticks, a squirt gun...
36	* CPRCleanPrettyReliable: Averted - it's actually pretty surprising that once they get Darren off of the little girl in the beginning, they just stare at her body and don't do CPR. Even in this situation any EMT or firefighter worth their chops would be all over that girl searching for any small spark of life left to work with.
37	* DarkActionGirl: Carla, the henchwoman dressed up as Iceburgh the Penguins’ mascot, gives Darren a very hard fight in the kitchen.
38	* DeadpanSnarker: Mostly by the FauxAffablyEvil villains, especially Carla, Jefferson, Scratch and finally Foss himself. Their villainous wisecracks are enjoyable to see.
39	* DesignatedGirlFight: Averted. Carla is the first of the terrorists to die at Darren's hands.
40	* DieHardOnAnX: ''Film/DieHard'' at an ice hockey game.
41	* {{Expy}}: Joshua Foss, the terrorists' leader, seems to be inspired by Hans Gruber from the first ''Film/DieHard'' movie. They're both shown to be suave and elegant men, but heartless monsters at the core with no feelings for anyone who gets hurt.
42	* EvilIsPetty: [[spoiler:Foss has [=McCord=] dead to rights and is about to escape in a helicopter. He wastes precious seconds and the chance to kill our hero by deciding to kill Darren's daughter instead, out of sheer sadistic spite, complete with a little speech about how he wants [[CruelMercy Darren to spend the rest of his life mourning that he couldn't save her]]. Darren gets his HeroicSecondWind, [[TakingTheBullet takes the bullet for his kid (in the shoulder)]], and [[ShortLivedAerialEscape fatally fucks Foss up]].]]
43	* FauxAffablyEvil: BigBad Joshua Foss and his terrorist henchmen (notable examples include [[DeadpanSnarker Carla and Jefferson]] as well as the food-loving Scratch, the explosive expert with the Uzi and last, but not least [[spoiler: TheMole Agent Hallmark]]). Out of all the other DieHardOnAnX villains, these terrorists are the most wisecracking.
44	* FullBodyDisguise: Darren dresses like a Penguins Goalie and goes out on the ice, sits next to and gets greeted by the team, ''plays'' goalie well, and no one notices that it's him and not the actual goalie. Not the other players, not the coach, not the audience... but for some reason the {{Mooks}} across the stadium recognize him, and his son way up in the nosebleed seats (though the only way the son recognized him was via their SecretHandshake).
45	* HeyYouHaymaker: Darren pulls one of these on a player of the opposite team while disguised as the Penguins goalie, in order to get out of the game.
46	* HomemadeFlamethrower: Darren [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WksivsiSF_ makes one]] out of a small toy squirt gun (filled with a flammable substance) and a lighter.
47	* IHaveYourWife: One of the cooks is forced to comply with Foss when his wife is held hostage. Scratch kills her as the game starts.
48	* INeverSaidItWasPoison: A mook messes up by saying Carla's name. He then {{Lampshades}} it by saying "You didn't say it, did you? I'm always doing things like that..."
49	* KarmicDeath: Carla killed a woman to steal her mascot outfit. During her fight with Darren, the same outfit she's still wearing ends up stuck in a machine used to clean dinner plates, causing her to be [[CruelAndUnusualDeath simultaneously strangled and boiled alive]].
50	* LackOfEmpathy: Whe the Vice-President tells to Foss that the man he killed had a family he very sarcastically claims that "I'll send the cards."
51	* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: When Hallmark calls up, Foss drly notes that "they cared enough to send the very best." The novelization notes Hallmark citing the trope "in the tone of someone who had heard that one at least once a week since the third grade."
52	* NoOshaCompliance: Not a single usher is checking the seats to make sure everyone evacuated safely nor noticed a child sitting by himself in the stadium that everyone just evacuated due to an explosion. [=McCord=], being the fire marshal on duty, is sure to include this in his report.
53	* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Much like [[Film/DeathWarrant Death Warrant]] five years prior, this movie tries to pass off Van Damme's Belgian accent as Quebecois. Then again, a [[FakeNationality Fake Canadian]] is appropriate to a hockey-themed movie.
54	* {{Novelization}}: By Steven Mertz. An audiobook adaptation was released at the same time, read by Creator/PowersBoothe, who plays the film's villain.
55	* PeekABooCorpse: Twice, in the girls room and in the office.
56	* PetTheDog: When the game is tied up, the BigBad decides the extra time is fair.
57	* UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}}: Filmed at the now gone Civic Arena. Seeing this movie is basically a rite-of-passage for Pens fans.
58	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The Penguins and the Blackhawks actually met in the Stanley Cup Finals once before in real life. In 1992, the Penguins swept the Blackhawks in four straight games to win their second straight Stanley Cup.
59	* RealPersonCameo: Many of the hockey players, the announcers, and even the man with the fabulous hair doing the National Anthem are actually part of the Penguins organization. Paul Steigerwald (the younger announcer) and Jeff Jimerson (the Anthem singer) still do those jobs with the Penguins in 2016! The game on the ice was played by one of the Pens' farm teams from Wheeling, WV.
60	* RealityIsUnrealistic: That helicopter they dropped through the roof at the end? They really did that. Ask anyone though and they'll swear it looks fake. Though while the helicopter crash itself is real, it doesn't help that there are some rather obvious chroma-key shots of the helicopter flying past some of the other characters which do look a bit fake, which may trick some viewers into thinking the whole thing is fake.
61	* RuleOfFunny: Darren fighting the Penguins Mascot. Even more because the original writer said this scene was the only remnant of his script, intended as an AffectionateParody instead of a straight-up action movie.
62	* ShirtlessScene: The locker room, full of big burly hockey players.
63	* ShortLivedAerialEscape: Darren shoots out the pilot and the BigBad does a LONG BigNo as the helicopter slowly crashes tail-first into the skating ring below in an orange fireball.
64	* SpannerInTheWorks: Foss has a pretty good plan going and it might well have worked. All it took to wreck it was for one little girl to run off from her seat, her dad looking for her and stumbling onto the whole plot.
65	* TitleDrop: The title of the film is displayed in big, flashy letters on the stadium score counter once the game reaches overtime.
66	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Several times action takes place over and around a crowd who simply cannot be distracted from the game. Not a single person is looking anywhere but the game.
67	* WaitHere: Darren tells Emily and Tyler to sit and watch the game. By themselves. Tyler listens. Emily gets fed up with her brother and marches straight into the plot.
68	* WetBlanketWife: Darren [=McCord=]'s ex-wife, who only appears in a single scene early on and her dialogue entirely consists of being irked that Darren decided to visit his children that day (if at all) and that she doesn't wants them to go with Darren to the stadium (even if it's the Stanley Cup and they both love the sport). Her children ''and both husbands'' look at her like she's gone nuts (eventual hostage situation notwithstanding).
69	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
70	** We never find out who wins the game. Everyone panics and leaves at an explosion and that's that. To be fair, the stadium is in no shape to finish the game out by the end...
71	** When the BigBad decides to blow the stadium, only one charge remains. It blows a water line, sending water down a ramp, tripping people. This does not impact our protagonists at all, and is never brought up again.
72	* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: When [[spoiler: Hallmark]] has a gun pulled on Darren instead of just shooting him he tells him to take his hands out of his pockets first. Bad move.
73	* WouldHitAGirl: A brutal fight to the death between Darren and a female assassin, which ends with the villain [[CruelAndUnusualDeath being simultaneously strangled and boiled alive]]. Though she's dressed as a penguin during their bout.
74	* WouldHurtAChild: The terrorists are willing to harm Darren's daughter, who's being held hostage by the BigBad during the film (they would have killed her immediately, but the hostage-taker used all her bullets on a security guard before she could shoot Emily).
75	* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Foss guns down the cook who was forced to help the terrorists, while Scratch kills the cook’s wife back at his home. In a sad, but ironic twist of fate, Paul Mochnick who played the cook in the film died six months prior to release of the film.

Context Film / SuddenDeath