Cheap Hard Target (DVD) (Lance Henriksen, Yancy Butler, Jean-Claude Van Damme) (John Woo) Price

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Customer Reviews of Hard Target

Jean-Claude is at one of his better acting attempts as he portrays a humble ex-marine wandering the streets, struggling for work. His demeanor is calm and less arrogant than we're used to seeing. He looks awesome when kicking butt, but not like he's showing off.

John Woo does a superb job at his first American debut at action directing. His foreign movies include Hard Boiled, with Cow Yun Fat, which has a lot of noticeable similarities with Hard Target except Hard Target is just plain better.

For fans of Lance Henrikson, he's awesome in this movie, too, as a smooth, but really angry business man who sets up bums from the street to be hunted by multi-millionaires who have nothing better to do with their time. When one old bum happens to be the father of Natasha, (Yancy Butler), she hires Chance, (Van Damme, who earlier saved her life), to help her around the city and find out who killed her daddy. A cat and mouse game begins between Chance and the "hunters" as they begin to pursue him in their deadly sport.

Bottom line, This Movie Rocks!

Van Damme's Best?
"Hard Target" Is Hong Kong action director John Woo's first forray into American film. That they tossed him a cheesy script and Van Damme for it proves that his American handlers weren't sure about his abilities. I'm happy to say that Woo proves himself to be an excellent action director who manages to get Van Damme's most interesting performance ever.

The plot is a basic "The Most Dangerous Game" [...]. Rich folk are hunting homeless Vietnam Vets in New Orleans for sport, with weapons and targets supplied by the always entertaining Lance Henriksen(Best known as Bishop the Android in "Aliens"). Van Damme plays a local longshorman/blue collar type who was raised in the Bayou by his crazy cajun Uncle(Hilariously portrayed by Wilford Brimley, who has a great time with his role). He comes across waywayd northerner Yancy Butler("Witchblade"), who is in town looking for her homeless vet father who got offed in the movie's opening sequence. The police are no help, and when Van Damme saves her from being attacked by local ruffians, she hires him to help her find her father. What follows are brilliantly over the top action sequences, and performances that are better than this movie deserves. Special mention must go to Arnold Vosloo(the Mummy in the new Mummy films) as the sadistic, consitantly amused by his own brutality VanCLeef, henchman of Henriksen. He knows the script is garbage, but plays the hell out of his role. His lines are great, and his demeanor perfect. Too bad he has to speak Ancient Egyptian in the Mummy films.

Van Damme is his usually bad self here, replying to the question "Why is your name Chance?" with a flat, accented "Because my momma took one". What does that mean? I don't know, but it sure comes out funny. He does get serious for the action scenes, and they are spectacular, particularly a motorcycle vs. truck showdown and the final battle in an old Mardi Gras wharehouse. So Woo breathes some life into the Muscles from Brussles.

The weakest link is Yancy Butler, who never switches from her monitone delivery, and emotes as well as a rock, but the over the top performances by Henricksen, Vosloo, and Brimley make up for it. Trust me, you've never heard a line like "Good whiskey makes jackrabbit slap the bear" until you've heard it from a cajun Wilford Brimley.

For the cheesey action fan, this is a must own. The action is better than the movie deserves, as Woo basically proves to the big guns in LA that he can make an American film, and the supporting performances make the bad script seem plausible. The rewatchability is high, and the film is alot of fun. So come on, be like Van Damme's momma and "Take a chance".

Van Damne, New Orleans style
This has to be the top 3 best Van Damne movies, this was made in New Orleans and I live only a few hours away from it, my god, Van Damne in the same state has me and only a few hours away good god and it was such a good movie.Again another awesome Van Damne movie.