Hard Target
by John Woo
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DVD details
Actor: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lance HenriksenDirector: John Woo
Brand: VAN DAMME,JEAN CLAU
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-07-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Hard Target
DVD Review: "We've got a little game we'd like you to play..."
Summary: 4 Stars
Plotwise: Emil Fuchon (Lance Henriksen) and Pik Van Cleef (Arnold Vosloo) operate a high-cost game in New Orleans during a citywide police strike: rich individuals pay big bucks to hunt the toughest target of all: man. Combat veterans, reduced to living on the streets, are coerced into participating, all for the client's satisfaction of taking down such a prey. One of these is Douglas Binder (Chuck Pfarrer), whose daughter Natasha (Yancy Butler) soon comes looking for. She hires local dock worker and combat veteran Chance Boudreaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) to help her out. Of course, Fuchon and Van Cleef would prefer there be no questions asked...
Review: John Woo's first American film is, all in all, the best kind of action film from yesteryear: all-out battles, little to no depth. The plot, the who-knows-how-manyth rehash of "The Most Dangerous Game," has some substance to it, but little character development. While Woo's Hong Kong productions were not of Shakesperian proportions, the characters had depth and personality. Most of the characters here are largely one-dimensional, and stay that way.
But so what? It's an action film, and on that level it more than delivers. The first major action sequence features a large amount of environmental damage- cars get ripped apart, blown up and such- and bullets fly endlessly, more often than not hitting someone in the process. The gunshot noises sound appropriately powerful, as if someone getting shot would take a lot of damage from even a pistol round. This scene sets a standard for the rest of the film, and the final confrontation takes up the last, oh, 15-20 minutes of a roughly 90 minute film. You can guess how epic it gets. Plus, all the Woo staples, like using two guns at once, pigeons and doves flying around, etc. are in abundance.
If for some reason you want to know how it goes as far as acting, you're clearly expecting too much from this film. As uber-insane as Woo can make the action, he can't make Van Damme an actor with depth. Van Damme's flat delivery makes him a relatively lifeless character, and his cocky, all-powerful attitude (as in parts of "Timecop") make him a typical action hero, the unstoppable one. As Fuchon, Lance Henriksen is a villain with class and cunning, although he turns into a raving maniac near the end. Arnold Vosloo is simply the sadistic right-hand man, nothing more, although he gives his character a hint of something else when he isn't smiling maniacally. Yancy Butler is relatively weak in her acting, although you can't expect much when she interacts mostly with Van Damme. A surprise comes from Wilford Brimley, who is hilarious as Van Damme's Cajun uncle.
To sum it up, see it for the action, not the acting.
On a scale of 1 to 10, this film gets a 7.
On a scale of 0.0 to 10.0, this film gets a 7.4.
On a scale of A to F, this film gets a B-.
On a scale of 1 to 5, this film gets a 3 1/2.
On a scale of 1 to 4, this film gets a 3.
Contentwise: Being a Van Damme film and a John Woo film, you'd expect a ton of bone-crunching brawls and billions-of-bullets gunfights, but there is almost none of the former, while the latter makes up roughly 80% of the film. There's nothing particularly graphic, except for when a snake's head is blown apart. There's no sex or nudity of any kind, and the language is brief.
Description of Hard Target
No Description Available.Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-MAY-2002
Media Type: DVD
Jean-Claude Van Damme, "the Muscles from Brussels," has sought to revitalize his flagging career by working with the most adrenalized directors from Hong Kong action films. His first such effort was this, the umpteenth remake of The Most Dangerous Game, which teamed him with Hong Kong's most fluid action poet, John Woo. Woo does what he can but, as much magic as he injects into the action, he can't turn Van Damme into an actor. Still, this is above-average fare for the wooden Belgian, in which he plays a guy trying to bust a ring of hunters who pay for the right to track and kill human quarry. And Woo has the ever-reliable Lance Henriksen as the chief bad guy, always a plus. --Marshall Fine
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