you 've got to think twice before you go see a movie with a title like maximum risk .
the title is generic .
it 's meaningless .
and i ca n't believe it 's good business .
when you pick up the phone and dial 777-film , how in the world are you supposed to remember that the new jean - claude van damme movie , the one that looked kind of cool in the trailers and is directed by some chinese hot shot , is called , geez , maximum risk ? yuck .
the movie itself deserves your attention .
for sweet bloody thrills , this one beats the summer blockbuster competition hands - down .
only mission : impossible came close to delivering as skillful a thriller , and i 'll give maximum risk the edge simply because it 's not as slick as the tom cruise picture , and therefore more gratifying in its execution .
much to my surprise , van damme continues to develop as a pleasant , unpretentious action hero .
his track record is n't as solid as schwarzenegger 's , but he 's a hell of a lot more adventurous than arnold .
in 1993 , van damme worked with hong kong 's premier hardcore action director , john woo , on a fairly lame movie called hard target .
( if you can find a bootleg copy , woo 's radically different director 's cut is much better than what was eventually released . )
this follow - up is directed by ringo lam ( city on fire , full contact ) , whose hong kong films are distinguished action pictures that have consistently played second fiddle to woo 's more operatic offerings .
the surprise here is that maximum risk is a more effective hollywood action flick than either hard target or woo 's subsequent broken arrow .
here 's the rundown .
van damme plays a french cop named alain moreau who is shaken when a policeman friend ( jean - hugues anglade ) finds a corpse that 's alain 's exact double .
turns out alain was separated at birth from his twin brother , michael , who has been killed by some russian heavies ( and some strangely american looking cops ) .
alain does some investigating .
he finds that michael had booked a flight to new york city , and received a message from someone there named alex bohemia .
assuming michael 's identity , alain flies to new york and gets tangled up with michael 's girlfriend ( natasha henstridge ) , the fbi , and the russian mob in little odessa .
that 's as much as you need to know .
the story is adequate , but not overly involving -- and the major plot points are basically explained to you twice , just in case you go out for popcorn at the wrong moment .
there 's a love story , too , but i did n't find it terribly convincing , partly because ex - model henstridge is too high - strung in her high - profile debut
( she had precious few lines as the alien ice queen in species ) .
she 's great to look at , and she can certainly read a line , but what she does here ca n't really be described as " acting .
" of course , " acting " is n't really what she was hired for ( i lost track of whether her shirt comes off more often than van damme 's ) .
the movie is exceptionally violent , bordering on gratuity .
( keep that in mind when planning your date . )
the stunts are spectacular , and the fact that you can spot van damme 's stand - in makes his work no less impressive .
there 's only so much you can do with a car wreck , but this movie makes crisp , effective use of pile - ups in a handful of frenzied destruction derbies .
and lam has a surprising , innovative sense of exactly where the camera should go to catch any bit of action .
the main difference between lam and woo , i believe , is that while woo relies on sheer spectacle to gas up his action show pieces , lam has figured out more about using cinematic space and double - barreled points of view to make things run .
do n't get me wrong -- when chow yun - fat soars through space pumping bullets out of two pistols and chewing on a toothpick with glass and confetti littering the air around him in woo 's hard - boiled , it 's an amazing moment .
but it 's a moment that 's hard to reproduce in hollywood .
( for one thing , hollywood does n't yet have chow yun - fat ! )
while woo 's hollywood movies look like the work of a talented upstart , maximum risk is a surprisingly confident picture .
the very first shot of the film is an awkward overhead view of a chase through the streets of a european city , but lam 's use of odd camera angles becomes more efficient later on .
the film editing is a particularly savvy complement to lam 's shooting style , accentuating rather than amplifying the action .
the performances could have used some fine tuning ( in particular , there 's an annoying , overwritten manhattan cab driver in the early scenes who should have been toned down or jettisoned completely ) , and the movie does n't always overcome the limitations of its genre .
the story is a little mundane , although there are some effective moments involving van damme 's unrequited feelings toward the brother he never knew he had .
but it 's not often that hollywood cranks out a truly satisfying action picture
,
and it 's doubly surprising that this one should come with a mere whisper of publicity .
van damme fans should treat themselves to what may well be the man 's best movie , and international action buffs will no doubt savor this flavorful hong kong / hollywood hybrid .
Output: P