Plot
An officer for a security agency that regulates time travel, must fend for his life against a shady politician who has a tie to his past.

Release Year: 1994

Rating: 5.6/10 (22,546 voted)

Director: Peter Hyams

Stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mia Sara, Ron Silver

Storyline
When the ability to travel through time is perfected, a new time of law enforcement agency is formed. It's called Time Enforcement Commission or TEC. A cop Max Walker is assigned to the group. On the day he was chosen, some men attack him and kill his wife. Ten years later Max is still grieving but has become a good agent for the TEC. He tracks down a former co-worker who went into the past to make money. Max brings him back for sentencing but not after telling Max that Senator McComb the man in charge of TEC sent him. Max has his eye on McComb.

Writers: Mark Verheiden, Mike Richardson

Cast:
Jean-Claude Van Damme - Walker
Mia Sara - Melissa
Ron Silver - McComb
Bruce McGill - Matuzak
Gloria Reuben - Fielding
Scott Bellis - Ricky
Jason Schombing - Atwood
Scott Lawrence - Spota
Kenneth Welsh - Utley
Brent Woolsey - Shotgun
Brad Loree - Reyes
Shane Kelly - Rollerblades
Richard Faraci - Cole
Steven Lambert - Lansing (as Steve Lambert)
Kevin McNulty - Parker

Taglines: Turn back the clock, and you're history.

Release Date: 16 September 1994

Filming Locations: Barclay St & Nicola St, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Box Office Details

Budget: $27,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $12,064,625 (USA) (18 September 1994)

Gross: $101,646,581 (Worldwide)

Runtime: 99 min

Trivia:
In the scenes where Jean-Claude Van Damme and Ron Silver are in their respective cars, the actors were shot on blue screen. The White House and D.C. backgrounds were added digitally in post-production.

Goofs:
Plot holes: Walker's job is to prevent people using time-travel to alter the past, thereby changing the future; this is what he's trying to prevent McComb, the film's main antagonist, from achieving. However, when Walker himself travels through time, he does not hesitate to cause as much damage to his surroundings as humanly possible. When he travels back to 1928, for example, he beats up two security guards, fires a futuristic laser-cannon in front of a large crowd of people, then jumps out of a window with the criminal in tow, and disappears into a wormhole above a busy street in New York City. Doing these things would drastically alter history, but none of these events seem to have any noticeable effect on the future/present.

Quotes:
Eugene Matuzak: You're allowed to have a life, you know. I read it in a manual somewhere.

A Step Above Most Of VanDamme Flicks

Rating: 7/10

I thought this was a notch above the normal no-brainer kick-boxer action flicks which star men like Jean-Claude VanDamme, Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, etc. because of the interesting and somewhat complex tale with time travel as the main theme. The story also has some good twists and humor.

THE GOOD - Kudos to the four s's in here: Silver, suspense, special-effects and sound - all of them are very good. There is something about Ron Silver's looks that spell "sleazy and rotten" before he even opens his mouth! When he speaks, his accent and profanity quickly verifies those suspicions. The special- effects - at least when this came out in the mid '90s - were very cool when the time travelers reached their destinations and appear out of this wall of near- transparent plastic. The story can be a bit confusing at times but is fun at most times, especially near the end when doubles of all the characters are on the screen at once

THE BAD - The bad part of the film is the credibility, especially with Silver who plays a politician. No politician, no matter what party or where, would be this much of low-life. In fact, the story is full of unlikable and untrustworthy characters, too many of them. There also is too much Rambo-mentality and the final action goes on way too long. The time travel ange of the story may be intelligent but the dialog in this movie is just plain dumb and too juvenile.

Overall, this is one of the best of a small group of well-done Van Damme movies.

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