TIME COP

US, 1994, 96 minutes, Colour.
Jean- Claude Van Damme, Mia Sara, Ron Silver, Bruce Mc Gill, Gloria Reuben.
Directed by Peter Hyams.

Time Travel movies are fascinating but are full of contradictions – especially about going back to change the past (which is what this film is about). Jean- Claude Van Damme still trying to humanise his image rather than perfect his acting goes back and forth to save the American presidency from a callously greedy senator, played with relish by Ron Silver.

Based on a comic strip, the film stays at that level, more or less, although it tries to inject some sentiment with Van Damme’s wife, played by Mia Sara.

It is designed for action fans who will like it but will not make any converts of non-action fans.

1. A Jean- Claude Van Damme star vehicle? Plot, character, martial arts, action hero? The film directed by Peter Hyams who has a wide range of genre films in his credits? Not simply an action show?

1. The Washington settings, 1994, 2004, similarities and differences? Washington, government? The Time Enforcement Commission? The laboratories, the time machines? The contrast with homes, families and domestic life? The travel into the past, the 20s, Wall Street, government, finance, society life? The musical score?

2. The title, the focus on Walker’s life, work, time travel, the effect?

3. Walker as a policeman, the credibility of Van Damme in this role? Training, his missions? His arriving home, the hitmen, his relationship with his wife, her sudden murder? His relationship with the government, with the senator?

4. His going into the future, his anger, his working as a time cop? The role of the senator, his ambitions, money deals? His going to the 20s, his partner, getting him to come from the 20s? The discovery about what the senator was doing back in the 20s? The Internal Affairs, Sarah Fielding, his going back with her to the past? The two senators, the younger and his advice to his older self? The irony that his partner had been bought by the senator? Her intervening, the senator shooting her? Her being left in the past? The decision for Walker to return to the future, to confront the senator?

5. The time travel between the decades, Walker going back into the 90s, to find his partner and her being wounded, wanting her to testify against the senator? Her being murdered – again? The irony of the discovery about his wife, her pregnancy? His contacting her, his changing time, his changing the events, the birth of the child? The irony of the police chief, his having been murdered, Walker changing time and therefore the police chief still living, running the department? The future with his wife, friends, his son?

6. The senator, Ron Silver as a villain? Seeing him in the 1990s, his cover, patriotism, in sessions? With the Time Enforcement Commission, with the chiefs? The campaign? Back in the past, his younger self, the money deals, advice for his older self, the making of money for the campaign? In 2004, his ruthlessness, his ambitions to be president? The killing of Fielding? The killing of the chief? Walker and his becoming a danger, the confrontation with the senator? His death?

7. The Time Enforcement Commission, the police chief? The machines, the processes of time travel, the effects? Partners in the 20s coming back into the 90s? Walker and his moving between the decades?

8. The plausibility of this kind of time travel, machines? The role of the police, crimes in the past? Deaths in the past, the ability to change time: the process of bringing the two aspects of the senator together and destroying him, thus changing time?

9. Jean- Claude Van Damme’s personality, ability as an actor, ability with martial arts and his physical dexterity?