10 Movie Scenes That Went Completely Over The Top
Femme Fatale started with quite the bang...
Hollywood is known as many things, but above all, it's a luscious parade of riches; excess to the extreme; embarrassingly flashy things moving at 24 frames a second. Occasionally, some substance can be injected in all the plastic, some social commentary or metaphorical angst, but it's rarely delivered with the brevity or wit of Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain.
It's typically ham-fisted, shoved down the viewer's throat. And occasionally, directors will have just too much influence over the project, creating their own monster from assembled parts and studio-enforced demands. This is when things can get downright bizarre, as the artist within struggles with the corporate world externally applying pressure. Often, the filmmaker attempts to placate both, or their entirely out of their league, not competent enough to explain why Whoopi Goldberg is partners with Tyrannosaur.
But other films, and specific moments within, are indelible due to their outright absurdity. Here are just a handful.
10. Mickey Rourke Explodes With A Tiger - Double Team
The 90s were a vastly different time - one in which one could see a trailer for a buddy action film starring Jean Claude Van Damme and basketball braggart/North Korea BFF Dennis Rodman and not think they had fallen into an alternate dimension. In 1997, it was just another in a long line of oddball pairings.
Rodman was at the height of his success as a player and a paparazzi show off, his behaviour off the court being politely described as unsportsmanlike. Then he got it in his head he wanted to venture into the movie business, seeing as how well that had turned out for Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal. So he took on the role of Yaz, an arms dealer who pairs with Van Damme's CIA agent to take down a terrorist planning to sell plutonium to Iraq (Mickey Rourke).
Every line of the film feels as if it were from an action script template on some screenwriting software; complete with personal vendettas, "you know him better than anyone" speeches, and the unlikely friendship that forms between Rourke and Van Damme, it's just played worse here.
That is, except for Mickey Rourke and his death. The actor was miles away from Sin City and credibility, so he settled for crap like this. The end of the film finds him standing on an active landmine in a Greek Stadium, which explodes just as he's attacked by a marauding tiger. It's best not to question such a slice of cinematic heaven.