Review of Hard Target (1993) by Timothy S — 08 Dec 2012

When "Hard Target" came to town in late summer, it came with two people who had something to prove; an acclaimed foreign director making his American film debut and a star anchoring his first big summer movie solo. Both, as it turns out, achieve their respective goals admirably with this wildly entertaining thriller that is light on pretty much everything except for expertly filmed action sequences.

John Woo is a master at this type of filmmaking as he's proven many times over in his native China, and he brings his stylized action stateside in a big way with this film. Jean Claude Van Damme finally breaks out of his simple, cheap-looking action films, and he's easy to like here even if he does have a habit of emulating Arnold Schwarzenegger's corny one-liners. Not every action film has to have them, especially when you consider that only one of them here is actually funny.

The plot, yet another variation on Richard Connell's 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game", has been done to death and Woo's penchant for slow motion and the use of doves can be silly, especially since both are overdone here. But I admired the vibrant film, it's flashy action and it makes great use of the beautiful city of New Orleans. Most of the bad guys are stock caricatures, but when you have Lance Henriksen as your main heavy, you're bound to have at least one great villain.

"Hard Target" definitely has that, and a lot of other things I admired. The story is run-of-the-mill, but in this case, the way that it is told is not.