James Cullen Bressack Explores Noir And Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Mortality in ‘Darkness of Man’

A huge selling point for “Darkness of Man” is that Jean-Claude Van Damme does not play a one man killing machine. This action thriller features JCVD as an individual who is not indestructible, and throughout the movie his character gets his share of bumps and bruises. Filmmaker/writer James Cullen Bressack paid homage to a couple of his favorite movies (“The Maltese Falcon,” “Oldboy”) with Darkness of Man, and he talked to Deepest Dream about making another engaging feature.

“Darkness of Man” centers on Russell Hatch (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a former Interpol operative who has spent the past ten years protecting Jayden (Emerson Min) of a slain informant. Jayden, now a teenager, gets involved in the family’s crime business in Koreatown. Hatch tries his best to keep Jayden out of trouble and in the process he gets caught up in a war between the Korean and Russian mob. The ensemble includes Kristanna Loken, Sticky Fingaz and Spencer Breslin.

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“This movie is a love letter to not only the action movies that I grew up on, but also the noir films I grew up on. Stuff like The Third Man and ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘Casablanca,'” said James Cullen Bressack, whose previous movies include ‘Fortress’ and ‘Hot Seat.’ “(These movies involve) flawed heroes that are holding themselves together while falling apart. And these are flawed people and they’re human. I think that it’s it’s fun to be able to dive into the headspace of a character like that and those inner monologues that they have that really show so much more about the character.”

Full interview with James Cullen Bressack:

“Darkness of Man” is now available on Digital.

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