Good concept, poorly executed.

Brilliant and touching

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

When I first seen the trailer to this in 2014 I was like, this is great I want to see this and I was not disappointed.Let me start by saying that Van Damme is back. His performance was good as the main villain I've been a fan of his for years and seeing him be a sort of corky bad guy was really fun.Now as far as Universal Soldier, the two new ones, I hated. Those films to me ruined that franchise but more on that for another review.Van Damme is some type of drug trafficker who loses his dope and gathers some henchmen to find it, but runs into trouble as he faces off against a Park ranger. I don't want to get into spoilers here but it's cool.The action scenes were excellent and the twists were unexpected Orlando Jones who I remember from Mad TV is in this and with out spoiling anything he was great too.Overall I liked it very much, director Peter Hymns is a good director way better than his immature son John Hymns, thanks for ruining universal Soldier.

I am so delighted to have seen this corny, lousy but enjoyable grade Z movie. It is forbidden to watch it in another way, period. So, don't see it with the same eyes you could have for a Marty Scorcese's movie. Please. The most interesting for me is of course JCVD performance, because he has here the bad guy character, and he is shown, he fights as if he was the good one. The true heroes of this feature are nearly transparent, and the film focuses on JCVD the heavy dude. Don't you find this interesting and so unusual? He has here a weird and totally f...up guy, a killer fond of nature and ecology. A killer who is, I repeat, shown as if he was the hero. So, you see, a film can be damn bad but also be interesting. Pure enjoyable time waster.And, one more thing, another Die Hard scheme, not the most famous although.

Henry (Scott) is a forest ranger in a remote part of the U.S.-Canadian border. A former Navy SEAL, an event in his past has caused him to seek the solitude to "clear his head". One night, his calm and serenity are shattered when two events occur: A man named Clay (Jones) arrives on his doorstep to take revenge against him for said past event, and also a gang of evil French-Canadian mercenaries invade the forest looking for a shipment of drugs. Because Xander (Van Damme) and his goons are so evil and murderous, Henry and Clay must reach a "great compromise" (just a little historical humor for ya) and work together to combat the baddies. Also a girl named Kayla (Cocker) is involved in all this...but how? Enemies become friends, friends become enemies, French-Canadian mercenaries are the enemies...but which of the enemies will be...CLOSER? In The Shepherd: Border Patrol (2008), our beloved JCVD was on the Mexican-American border. Now he's on the Canadian-American border (well, actually it's Bulgaria. Where else did you expect?) in another DTV B-Movie. It works well enough on its own terms, and the audience-friendly running time of 79 minutes (without the end credits) is a length far more movies should aim for, and we give it credit for that. Plus, Van Damme has re-teamed with the elder Hyams, Peter, once again, after their classic 90's collaborations Timecop (1994) and Sudden Death (1995). Enemies Closer has a simple premise that doesn't demand too much of the audience, and is executed professionally. Sure, there are a couple of the standard low-budget pitfalls such as a bit of clunky acting and dialogue (though not for Van Damme, he's a standout as the baddie), and a really annoying tendency during the fight scenes to have these obviously removed/cut frames in order to speed up (?) the action. We wish they didn't do that. Plus because the movie is primarily set in the forest at night, it's very dark. We're getting really sick and tired of all these too-dark, underlit movies. We're always ranting about this, it seems. Would some freakin' LIGHTS be too much to ask for a visual medium like film? Well, anyway...Tom Everett Scott plays the "nice guy" very well, almost in a Tom or Colin Hanks mode, but it's a little jarring when he unleashes his Tom Everett Fu on the bad guys. It's hard to imagine one of the Hanks clan doing this. And not just regular Martial Arts either - takedowns with crazy, acrobatic flips and stuff. Same for Orlando Jones. What with his newfound Orlando-Fu, apparently any B-movie actor is now a Martial Arts expert? What's next, Wallace Shawn-Fu? But I guess it's all part of the fun. Presumably you're not supposed to take it all that seriously, though certain scenes are reminiscent of Killing Season (2013). But instead of Travolta and De Niro, it's Scott and Jones. Hey, it's all DTV. If Travolta and De Niro can go DTV, it can happen to anyone. It's the great equalizer.But, as you might expect, Van Damme is truly the centerpiece of the movie, and he shines as the lead bad guy. Our guess is he probably relishes the chance to be the villain, which he doesn't get to do too often (unless you count Villain), and you can tell here. With his red, somewhat clownish hair and almost whimsical evil, he's like a French-speaking The Joker. But everyone involved does their part to make Enemies Closer a reasonably enjoyable, if fairly routine action/wilderness thriller.Van Damme fans will want to check this out, of course, and anyone who enjoys these types of DTV outings will likely walk away happy with Enemies Closer.

"Running Scared" director Peter Hyams' "Enemies Closer" qualifies as a good, fast-paced action thriller that dares to be different.Unfortunately, it doesn't succeed as much as it could, but this ranks as an above average actioneer for the Muscles from Brussels. "Expendables 2" action-star Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a murderous villain named Xander as if he were on LSD. He wears his hair feathered around his head and he has a memorable entrance. Honest, Jean Claude is the best asset of the film. He must have had a blast hamming it up as the bad guy and his performance is as much a stretch for him as "JVCD." He retrieves fifty pounds of heroin from a river after a plane crashed. He runs afoul of Henry, the Park Ranger (Tom Everett Scott) and another guy, Clay (Orlando Jones) who has come to kill the Park Ranger. Seems that Clay's deceased brother served under Henry's command in war and he didn't make it back. Naturally, Clay holds Henry responsible and Henry is pretty broken up about it himself. Henry had taken the job as a Park Ranger so he can put himself as far away from humanity as possible. If the prospect of watching Van Damme as a non-marital arts villain is offbeat for any film so is the prospect of Tom Everett Scott having been an elite military commando. Nevertheless, Scott appears solid, and he handles himself with acceptable finesse, particularly in his close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat scenes. Clocking in at about 85 minutes, "Enemies Closer" has a surprise or two, other than its unusual casting, and Hyams never lets the pace drag. The biggest complaint about "Enemies Closer" is its adherence to tradition. Wouldn't things have been cooler if Van Damme triumphed over the heroes and left with his heroin. Now, what'd that have been an intriguing movie: let the bad ass villain win. Tony Morales' orchestral soundtrack captures the rugged, tough guys must die feeling. Lensed in Burgaria, but you'd never notice it.