Enemies Closer

Enemies Closer
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Peter Hyams
Produced by	Moshe Diamant Courtney Solomon Orlando Jones
Written by	Eric Bromberg James Bromberg
Starring	Tom Everett Scott Jean-Claude Van Damme Orlando Jones
Music by	Tony Morales
Cinematography	Peter Hyams
Edited by	John Hyams
Production company	After Dark Films Signature Entertainment
Distributed by	Lionsgate
Release date	4 December 2013 (2013-12-04) (France) 24 January 2014 (2014-01-24) (United States)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States[1]
Language	English French
Budget	$5 million[2]

Enemies Closer is a 2013 American action thriller film directed and photographed by Peter Hyams, and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Tom Everett Scott and Orlando Jones. It is Hyams' third directorial collaboration with Van Damme, following 1994's Timecop and 1995's Sudden Death.^[3][4][5][6]

Plot

A plane carrying a mysterious cargo crashes into a lake near the US-Canada border. A group of American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and Canadian Mounties prepare for a search of the plane and its cargo, but are attacked and killed by a man named Xander (Jean-Claude Van Damme). The Mounties are actually working for Xander, and they must complete their task within four hours before the next shift of agents arrives.

Ex-Navy SEAL Henry Taylor (Tom Everett Scott) is a forest ranger on King's Island near the border, where he runs the Ranger station/visitor's center. The sole other resident Sanderson (Christopher Robbie) is a resentful elderly man whom Henry infrequently checks on. While checking the nearby trails, Henry finds an injured woman named Kayla (Linzey Cocker). He takes her back to his cabin, and she starts flirting with him. He escorts her to her canoe, and she invites him to dinner later that night across the lake. Meanwhile, Xander and his men steal a boat, killing the owner and dumping the body.

While Henry is changing, Clay (Orlando Jones) knocks on the door, claiming that he had beached his boat on the island and is looking for help. Henry lets him in, but notices his odd behavior and a tattoo on his right arm. Clay pulls a gun on Henry, and tells him that his younger brother Decker was a SEAL under Henry's command who had been killed in the line of duty. Clay had heard that Decker was abandoned by his commanding officer, and wants Henry to pay for his death. Henry responds by explaining they had been ambushed, and he pulled out early to prevent risking the lives of more men. Just then, Kayla calls Henry's phone, telling him that she is running late. Clay shoots the phone and Henry takes the opportunity to attack Clay, who proves to be a skilled fighter and after a sustained fight, eventually knocks Henry unconscious. He drags him out into a nearby field and gives him a gun, ordering him to shoot himself. Henry refuses and says Decker's death wasn't his fault. Just as Clay is about to shoot Henry himself, Xander and his men show up on their boat, claiming to be ICE agents and questioning their presence. Henry sees through the ruse and runs. Xander's men fire at him, but Clay shoots back and manages to disable the diver. The gunfire is heard by two real ICE agents who are investigating the death of the others and head in its direction. Xander determines that his driver won't survive and smothers him to death. He recognizes Henry as ex-military, and resolves to force him to act as their diver so they can retrieve the plane's contents, a large shipment of heroin.

Two of Xander's men arrive at Henry's cabin and find no one. On Xander's orders, they sink his boat. Henry, meanwhile, goes to find his stashed kayak, but is intercepted by another one of Xander's men, who shoots the kayak. The assailant, however, is later beaten and loses consciousness. While walking, Henry explains to Clay that the Mounties who pursue them are drug dealers who had military training, yet Clay chides him into not talking about his brother again. Xander later kills the ICE agents one by one while they search. As Xander's other men search for Henry and Clay, the two men seek refuge by breaking into Sanderson's house. Sanderson initially resists their plea for help but later gives in when they tell him that he and they are the dealers' targets while his house is shot at. In desperation, he tells them to escape through the back door while staying behind.

Later Sanderson is wounded while he tries to drive Xander and his men away, then he is captured. Xander questions him about Henry and Clay's whereabouts, but when Sanderson fails to answer their questions correctly, he stabs him dead. He reminds Henry to give him the stash of heroin or his family will die. In the forest, Henry lights a giant bonfire as a diversion then goes away. The assailant who has shot Henry's kayak later awakens and attacks Clay, who then kills him with a rock. As Xander's man Saul finds Henry, they engage in combat. Henry appears to be losing the fight, but is helped by Clay who stabs Saul in the neck. The two men then try to find Xander after pulling another henchman from a booby trap and questioning him, then Clay punches him to sleep.

Meanwhile, Kayla returns after Henry fails to meet with her for dinner. Xander captures her and calls for Henry to hand over the drugs. Henry is also captured and he pleads with him not to harm her while he is being led to the boat. Kayla is held at knifepoint, and later at gunpoint, with her mouth gagged with a strip of duct tape. She is then tied up, with tape on her mouth. Unknown to both Henry and Clay, Kayla secretly has been on Xander's side all along and tries to hide her involvement by pretending to be Henry's girlfriend and using her capture as a ploy to reach Henry. Xander reveals he was a soldier like Henry aboard the boat, only that he has gone bad. When Clay finds Kayla to rescue her, he assaults and eventually subdues her captor. As Clay unties Kayla and removes the strip of duct tape which was used to gag her mouth, she displays her treachery when she points the gun at Clay, saying Xander paid her to keep anyone out of his activities. Feeling confounded, he dares her to shoot him, so he jumps into the water to save himself when she opens fire at him, then looks for him. As forest police come to ask Kayla about where Henry is and what really happened, she says she has just arrived and wants to fish in the morning, only for her to shoot them dead when Clay yells to warn them. Clay and Kayla struggle, but he knocks her out with a gun. Henry manages to find the heroin. Kayla later awakens and while Clay holds her at gunpoint, Xander tells her on the transceiver to meet him and retrieve the drugs, and in return, she falsely convinces him that Clay has been dealt with.

While Henry accompanies Xander on land, Kayla cries for help, still at gunpoint; Clay relays her betrayal to Henry by yelling at him to drop the gun, to no avail. The villains fight back as Kayla and Clay grapple, yet he lets her go to face Xander. Next, Kayla attempts to strangle Henry, but he manages to overpower her. Xander subdues Clay by stabbing him in the leg. Henry challenges Xander to run after him and catch the drugs. When Xander realizes Kayla is unable to take Henry out, he snaps her neck. The two men engage in a struggle in the forest. They fall from a tree and later they continue fighting on Xander's boat. Xander tries to hit Henry, who is hanging on to the boat, with an anchor but it hits the fuel tank, leaking fuel. Henry catches a flare and lights it, then throws it at the path of the boat. The boat explodes, killing Xander and burning the stash. Clay then pulls Henry, who forgets that Kayla is dead, from the shore.

Cast

• Jean-Claude Van Damme as Xander
• Tom Everett Scott as Henry Taylor
• Orlando Jones as Clay
• Kristopher Van Varenberg as François
• Linzey Cocker as Kayla
• Zahary Baharov as Saul

Release

Enemies Closer was released in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray on July 21, 2014 by Anchor Bay Entertainment.

Reception

The film received mostly positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a "fresh" score of 77% based on 12 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10 with no consensus as of yet.^[7] Metacritic gave the film a weighted average metascore of 49/100, based on 9 reviews, indicating mixed or average reviews.^[5]

References

External links

• Enemies Closer on IMDb