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Needs bigger projects


He has a rather odd CV (in his latter years) with 3 of his last 9 movies starring Jean Claude Van Damme (the latter being a STV B-Movie) Strangely enough, his son (John Hyams) has also directed 3 Van Damme movies too.
But for the guy that made Capricorn One, Outland and 2010...'Enemies Closer' (2013) seems an odd swansong for such a great director (and cinematographer)

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Yes, I have thought the same. His career went downhill after 2010, which is strange considering its his best work (that I know of).

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Your post got me curious so I looked up his filmography.

Of his movies I've seen: 2010, Timecop, Sudden Death, End of Days and The Musketeer.

I'd say of that bunch 2010 is his best film. It's pretty good and I would recommend it to any sci-fi fan. Timecop is a pretty decent sci-fi actioner. Sudden Death I thought was pretty lame and derivative, one of the more generic Die Hard clones. End of Days I liked fairly well when it was released, but I revisited it recently and turned it off about halfway through. The Musketeer I remember thinking was okay but I expected more from it after seeing what was a pretty good trailer.

I see that he got to work with Sean Connery in The Presidio and Gene Hackman in Narrow Margin. I haven't seen either film, but both have negative scores on RT from both critics and audiences, so that isn't encouraging. It's a shame to get talent like that and not make great movies with it.

It does seem odd that his last film would be a Van Damme flick. What's also odd is that it's a rare JCVD movie that has a positive critics score on RT, and odder still is that while the critics seemed to have liked it the audience score is only 29%. I haven't seen it but this intrigues me and now I think I might watch it tonight.

Enemies Closer came out in 2013 and there are no upcoming projects listed on his IMDB page. Considering the fact that he's 77 years old I suspect his career is probably done.

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He has made some great movies but few were big hits. All in all, most directors never matched his level of success.

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