Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Leofwine_draca Van Damme's latest thriller is a low-budget riff on BLACK HAWK DOWN, complete with a foreign locale (this time it's the cheap-to-make-films-in Romania) and lots of scenes of arms-waving militia walking the streets and engaging in shoot-outs with the defending Americans. Essentially this is yet another siege film, as the heroes protect innocent people holed up in a single location and attempt to hold out against overwhelming numbers until help arrives. Except one of the problems with the low budget is that there aren't actually that many bad guys on screen at one, probably a dozen, and it's pretty obvious at times that extras are playing multiple parts.In the film's favour, this boasts another decent performance from Van Damme, something that's become quite comment in his recent films. Van Damme is a likable, friendly type of guy throughout, and you find yourself rooting for him from the beginning. The supporting cast members (most of whom have 'graduated' from UK soaps) are okay, with the standouts being Velibor Topic's imposing rebel leader and Julie Cox's fragile reporter. The locations are passable and there are some decent big-bucks explosions at the film's climax, in which the CGI helicopters are the only things that don't convince. There is less action than you'd imagine, and Van Damme only gets to engage in a couple of fist fights. My main problem with the film is that director Simon Fellows seems to find it necessary to shoot his scenes in a juddery, hand-held camera style that always cuts away from the impact. This is particularly bad in the fight scenes, which are little more than blurred messes where you spend half the time trying to figure out who's hitting who.Still, the film deserves kudos for the gory eye-gouging that Van Damme inflicts on one particularly unpleasant villain. If it wasn't for Fellows dropping the ball with some truly bad camera-work, SECOND IN COMMAND would have been a highly decent B-movie. As it stands, it's a watchable film with plenty of problems but one that somehow proves to be just as likable as its leading man.

ghostrlb I was actually disappointed with this move as I felt that a better portrayal of the heroism in situations like this, seamed to have been over looked. Never thought I'd see a movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme, being anything but the hero. His character's primary concern seams to be for the Female reporter that he knew personally, then for the others that were in the same trouble. She was about the only thing he did manage to save and protect at the cost of others. The use of abilities that Jean- Claude Van Damme is most known for are few and far in between. Nice action scenes that show the producers paid good attention to the details.Was happy to see the "REAL" Hero, show up at the very end to save the life of the character acted out by Jean- Claude Van Damme's. Not a Movie I would recommend to anyone as it was in my opinion one of Jean-Claude Van Damme's worst.

alex a I was really disappointed watching this movie. As a citizen of Republic of Moldova, I had the same filing as if someone from USA will watch an action movie about Washington DC that was filmed in some average Mexican city. People that made this movie had to do a little research on the country they make movie about and show at list something close to reality. Not just go in some Romanian city that doesn't have anything in common with the capital of Moldova, Chisinau, and shoot a movie with a bunch of Romanians that also doesn't know much about this country. That's why I rate it with 2.

lost-in-limbo In the Eastern European nation of Moldavia, the new appointed prime minister is facing some political resistance, where some figures want to take him down. To do so, they plan a sniper to shoot an innocent civilian, which makes it look like the prime minister's guards were shooting. Riots break out and it's up to American marine Sam Keenan to get the prime minister to the American Embassy for protection. Soon they find out there's a large militia group outside the Embassy and they want the prime minister. So the small group of American soldiers and civilians hold up inside and try to wait for reinforcements, while the well-armed insurgents surround the building.Jean Claude Van Damme has kind of been in the wilderness of churning out straight to DVD junk over the last decade, but honestly on this occasion what entertaining junk "Second in Command" turned out to be. As Van Damme action vehicles go, "Second in Command" is a modest action thriller joint that delivers the goods in a fast-paced and intense fashion, even though the whole one-idea set-up is familiarly derived. It does comes off, though. "The Alamo" reference is fitting to what you're seeing and it also takes some tips from Ridley Scott's frenetic "Black Hawk Down". The premise starts off at a breakneck pace and then tightly builds up to its chaotic siege situation with a exhilarating climax with some organic grit. Along the way it offers up a surprise or two and there's no real political interference in how they shape the story, despite the topic at hand and flawed nature. Logic is lacking and it's far from clever. The basic script won't set the film alight, but never falls into any cheesy mumbling. It's an old school layout with new technology adding to the glitz. The camera-work has that natural doco-style intrusion with many nauseating movements, fast editing is razor sharp, slow-motion gets a look in and the musical score has a cutting techno jibe that stays in the background. I usually can't stand these types of novel techniques, but it was easy to swallow because it never gets overwhelmed by it all. The action scenes, which for this type of film is what we are actually hanging around for. Are handled with great vigour and the set-pieces can raise a sweat. Those looking for Van Damme's crisply striking martial arts skills will get very little of it, even though it boasts a few exciting one-one combat scenes (mainly the climax with the lead bad guy), but instead there are ample explosions and raining gunfire that makes sure this parade is aggressively violent. There's plenty of bang for your buck! The robust direction by Simon Fellows can build up the tension effectively and it does well to staying to its strengths, as it feels larger than it actually is, because it works around its budget restraints to achieve an honest attempt. The film location was in Romania, but you can easily tell when they were staged on sets and the real stock footage interwoven into the film sticks out clearly. They do get that washed out look with a dusty and at times hazy air forming in certain sequences. Jean Claude Van Damme is capably good and fit's the mould perfectly, with his downtrodden and workman like performance of a more beatable and humane character than anything overly heroic. Yeah he ain't bad at all. The rest of the support performances are agreeable enough."Second in Command" is a bold, noisy, ultra-zippy action film, which doesn't kick up anything of special importance or originality, but to simply entertain. It enjoyably succeeds and never lets a flat note get hold.