Overview of Double Team w/ Owen Burke (Classic)
In this episode of How Did This Get Made?, Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, Jason Mantzoukas, and guest Owen Burke break down the 1997 Jean-Claude Van Damme / Dennis Rodman action movie Double Team. The conversation focuses on how bewilderingly plot-heavy, badly dubbed, and bizarrely constructed the film is—yet also how entertainingly watchable it becomes because of its sheer nonsense. The panel repeatedly marvels at the movie’s logic gaps, abrupt shifts in tone, heavy use of ADR, and the bizarre pairing of Van Damme with Rodman.
What They Talked About
The movie’s confusing structure
- The hosts are immediately baffled by the opening mission, Van Damme’s character naming, and the film’s inconsistent “last mission” setup.
- They note that the movie feels like it was stitched together from unrelated scenes, locations, and action set pieces.
- The timeline is especially confusing, with talk of a 36-hour deadline, a pregnancy due date, and a story that seems to span months.
Van Damme, Rodman, and the mismatch in tone
- The cast and characters are treated as absurdly mismatched: Van Damme plays a classic action hero while Rodman plays a bizarre weapons dealer named Yaz.
- The hosts point out that Van Damme and Rodman never quite develop a real partnership; they mostly remain indifferent to each other.
- Dennis Rodman’s dialogue and attitude are a major source of amusement, especially his basketball references and offbeat delivery.
The movie’s weird visuals and production choices
- The panel repeatedly jokes that the entire film feels heavily ADR’d, with dialogue clearly added after the fact.
- They mock the strange location choices, including:
- a house on a cliff with a train inexplicably passing behind it,
- a rainy amusement park full of ride-goers and gunfire,
- hospitals with no staff,
- a “colony” of retired spies that resembles a luxury resort.
- They suspect the movie was built around available European locations and tax incentives more than a coherent script.
The “Colony” and spy world logic
- The hosts spend a lot of time unpacking the Colony, the secret island where failed or retired spies are sent.
- They compare it to The Prisoner, a cruise ship, a retirement community, and a Dr. Strangelove command center.
- They question why the Colony exists, who runs it, and why it functions like both a punishment and a comfortable retirement destination.
The action scenes and escalating absurdity
- They laugh at the movie’s disregard for bystanders, children, and animals during action sequences.
- Notable moments discussed include:
- a tiger tipping off Mickey Rourke’s character,
- babies being put in danger during a hospital shootout,
- a switchblade hidden in a man’s foot,
- grenade explosions that seem wildly inconsistent in scale,
- the final Coliseum showdown, which ends in a massive explosion.
- They also highlight the movie’s strange use of Coke products, including a Coke machine that becomes a literal lifesaver.
Notable Lines and Observations
Favorite bits from the discussion
- “I can shoot the dick off a hummingbird.”
- “Forget you ever saw him.”
- “Your swan is beautiful. You are beautiful.”
- “The tiger is stronger.”
- “They probably got braces and summer homes from the ADR.”
Recurring jokes and themes
- The hosts keep returning to the idea that the movie is almost entirely plot by voiceover and ADR.
- They question whether the actors even knew what was happening scene to scene.
- June and Jason repeatedly point out how many people die, how many explosions happen, and how little consequence there seems to be.
Second Opinions and Fan Reviews
The episode ends with a pair of delightfully confused Amazon reviews read aloud:
- One review calls the movie an “uncredible miracle work” and gives it “a six out of five.”
- Another review appears to be about completely unrelated topics like a house in the country, a dog, and music—suggesting an accidental or misposted review.
The hosts use these as further proof that Double Team inspires confusion even outside the podcast.
Verdict
- Overall recommendation: Yes—rent it.
- The panel agrees that Double Team is not good in a traditional sense, but it is wildly entertaining because of how incoherent, overproduced, and bizarre it is.
- Their consensus is that it’s a perfect “How Did This Get Made?” movie: ridiculous, impossible to follow, and endlessly discussable.