Review of Maximum Risk (1996) by Allan C — 29 Mar 2014
The American debut of Hong Kong director Ringo Lam (City on Fire (1987), Twin Dragons (1992) and Victim (1999)), this is a brainless action film taken from a screenplay by Larry Ferguson (Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Alien 3 (1992)), although Lam had trouble with the studio while making this film, it does have some good action sequences.
Alain Moreau (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is an honest cop in Nice, France who is visited by his old partner Sebastien (Jean-Hugues Anglade), who takes him to a crime scene where Sebastien shows Alain a dead man who looks identical to Alain.
The dead man is Mikhail Suverov (also Van Damme), who was born on the same day as Alain, and is in fact the twin brother Alain never knew he had. The trail leads Alain to New York, where he finds out that Mikhail was a member of the Russian Mafia, and the Mafia and the FBI wanted him dead.
When Alain is mistaken for Mikhail, he ends up on the run with Mikhail's fiancé Alex Bartlett (Natasha Henstridge). This is an extremely silly film, which gives Van Damme the excuse to kick some butt again, but at least he looks the part as a French policeman.
This is the kind of action film that seldom gets made anymore, but it came as the action genre was in serious decline, when most of them and their actors went straight to video.
This review of Maximum Risk (1996) was written by Allan C on 29 Mar 2014.
Maximum Risk has generally received mixed reviews.
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