Previous Posts
Archives
- December 1997
- March 1998
- April 1998
- May 1998
- September 1998
- December 1998
- January 1999
- April 1999
- July 1999
- August 1999
- October 1999
- November 1999
- February 2000
- August 2002
- October 2002
- November 2002
- February 2003
- April 2003
- May 2003
- July 2003
- August 2003
- September 2003
- January 2004
- February 2004
- August 2004
- December 2004
- January 2005
- May 2005
- July 2005
- August 2005
- September 2005
- January 2006
- February 2006
- March 2006
Contact
Film Raider
Sunday, March 29, 1998
Review - Maximum Risk (1996)
Starring - Jean-Claude Van Damme; Natasha Henstridge; Jean-Hugues Anglade; Zach Grenier & Paul Ben-Victor
Director - Ringo Lam
MPAA - Rated R for strong violence, and for some sexuality and language.
Here's a concept -- Jean-Claude Van Damme gets killed within the first ten minutes of the movie. Now if that isn't enough to get you to finally see a Van Damme movie, I don't know what is. All sarcasm aside, it is certainly a different way to start a movie; of course a few minutes later we find out that the newly deceased had a twin brother -- so lucky us, we get to see more of Jean-Claude. Van Damme #1 works for the Russian Mafia in the United States and is killed by some of their operatives. Van Damme #2 is a police officer in France who finds out that he had a twin brother he never knew about after #1 gets killed in France. The remaining twin (the French cop) goes to the United States to find out who killed his brother and avenge his death. Once there, he hooks up with his deceased brother's girlfriend, played by Natasha Henstridge, and the two of them set out to discover who the murderers are.
Jean-Claude's acting abilities don't seem to be up to the usual lackluster standards in this movie. In other words, just in case you missed the sarcasm, his acting is worse than normal. On the upside, Natasha Henstridge is in this film, and she does what she did best in Species -- she gets naked. Sadly, this is probably the high point in the movie. She is actually a decent actress, but didn't improve as much as I thought she would after Species.
This is the typical Van Damme movie, with Jean-Claude doing a variety of high end martial arts moves on his opponents. Nothing new here; and certainly nothing we haven't seen in every other Van Damme movie. Simply put, there is absolutely nothing new about this movie. It has a retread plot -- this isn't the first time Jean-Claude has played twins. He still can't act. We all saw Natasha's breasts in Species (although this is one repeat performance I'm not complaining about). This is pretty much like every movie that Van Damme has ever been involved in -- sub par.
4/10
