Review of Maximum Risk (1996) by Kevin H — 16 Dec 2007

Back in 95-96 Van Damme was still a big deal where his mere appearance was enough for movie goers to come out and see his movies, well this was one of those where the story lines may be dumb, dialogue may be laughable but the Van Damme name was enough to make this movie number 1 at one point. Also having Natasha Henstridge (who had just come off a monumental role in Species) helped matters as back then she was hot enough to sell tickets herself.

In this movie Van Damme does what he does best, play a double role....for about 5 minutes. The film rushes right out of the gate with a chase scene so the director probably figured forget the plot line and just get to what the fans wanted to see. Then inexplicably they kill Van Damme after the chase scene....or so we thought.

The plot to this one is Van Damme plays a french cop who's mistaken for a dead Russian which happens to be his long lost identical twin brother. His brother was in the Russian mob and had gotten wind of an alliance between American CIA agents and the mob so he was marked for death. Van Damme spends the whole movie trying to figure out what happened to his brother and to bring the mobsters and rogue agents down.

For whatever reason, even after Van Damme identifies himself as not Mikhail (the dead mobster) but as Alain (the french cop), Natasha Henstridge still falls in love with him. To anyone reading this that has a twin brother, if he dropped dead would his g/f suddenly come on to you? Not very logical but hey, seeing Natasha get her groove on is always a welcome sight.

This was probably the downfall of Jean's career as he was battling drug problems and his movies appeared to make less and less sense, not to mention the ol revenge plot went out in the 80's and early 90's.

What I'm trying to say is, its a good movie...just had no business being number 1 in the theaters and wasn't his best role by any means.

3 out of 5.