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Review Archive
FILMS
Hard Target (1993)I think Hard Target was the first John Woo movie I ever saw. I know that will sound like a tragedy for any real John Woo fan out there. But what can I tell you? I had no idea who John Woo was. I was a fan of martial-arts movies. And Jean Claude Van Damme could do no wrong in my eyes at the time. (My eyes have gotten a lot better with time, though I'm still an action junkie enough to watch all his films anyway.)
At the time, I thought that Hard Target was one of Van Damme's better films, though I expect I was probably a bit disappointed at the lack of martial arts (relative to films like Bloodsport and Kickboxer). Remember, I had no idea that John Woo was mostly known for his "gun fu" movies.
Later on, I rented (unbeknownst to me and my friend Tom) a heavily edited version of The Killer, which many people regard as John Woo's best film. I wasn't terribly impressed at the time. (The heavy editing was to blame. I got a better version later on and love the film now.) It wasn't until I saw Hard Boiled that I really started to appreciate Woo fully.
Back to Hard Target. After years and years of being a John Woo fan, I believe that Hard Target is actually his most successful American film. It didn't have the box office draw of movies like Mission: Impossible 2 or Face/Off. And God only knows that Van Damme doesn't have the acting chops of guys like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, or Nicholas Cage. But I still think that Hard Target is the best American example of John Woo's style. In short, it's a really impressive action film, despite it's main character. Not because of him.
For those of you who know nothing about the plot, here's a quick rundown: It's based on "The Most Dangerous Game," a short story many of us were made to read in grade school. The short story deals with a man being hunted for sport by a wealthy isolate and his Cossack henchman. Hard Target, being a Hollywood production, raises the ante a lot. So instead of one man being hunted through a remote jungle with nothing but a knife and a pointy stick to save him, we get various unfortunates being chased through the streets of the Big Easy by hunters riding motorcycles and wielding MP5 submachine guns.
Leading the pack are Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen) and Pik Van Cleaf (Arnold Vosloo), two retired mercenaries who now make their living arranging hunts for bored millionaires. For a heavy sum, they'll provide the quarry (combat veterans living homeless on New Orleans' streets), a weapon of choice, an army of grunts to accompany the hunter, and an alibi for after the fact.
Why New Orleans? As Fouchon points out, "We're not here by chance." The New Orleans police department is on strike, leaving one detective on duty in the entire city. With a setup like that, Fouchon and company have a free pass to run amok through city streets, swamps, and eventually "the Mardi Gras graveyard" (a warehouse full of disused parade floats).
When Natasha "Nat" Binder (Yancy Butler) rolls into town looking for her father (whom she hasn't seen since her parents were divorced many years earlier), the one cop on duty tells her to canvas the local shelters and advises her to find someone who can show her around the, basically lawless, city.
Enter Chance Boudreaux (Van Damme). We're introduced to Boudreaux in a greasy diner, where he pays for a cup of coffee and a bowl of "tragic" gumbo with loose pocket change. Clearly, he's down on his luck. And after he easily dispatches a gang of unsavory characters who try to mug Nat outside the diner, Ms. Binder decides she's found her guide. All I'll say about the rest of the plot is that Boudreaux, himself a Special Forces veteran, gets tied up with Fouchon's business and lands himself a starring role in their next hunt. From that point onward, the "ballistic ballet" is in full swing.
OK, there's your plot. Onto the characters. Yancy Butler is perfectly fine as Nat Binder. And Wilford Brimley is pretty entertaining as Chance's crazy, bayou-dwelling, moonshine-swigging Uncle Douvee. That leaves Chance himself and the bad guys really.
What can you say about Jean Claude Van Damme really? Actually I'm not going to start that game. Let's stick to the basics. Van Damme sports one of the worst haircuts in cinematic history in this flick: The moussed mullet. Business in front, party in back. Presumably he's reduced to paying for gumbo with nickels because he's blown all his real cash on hair products, tailored jeans, and a fairly nice set of work boots. My only advice to you is to leave it alone. Forget about it. It makes no sense. But ultimately Van Damme's credibility as a homeless guy really doesn't have much bearing on the movie.
Then there's Emil Fouchon. Henriksen is a good actor. He makes the perfect Fouchon, sneering at both the quarry and his own clients with equal disdain and smugness. He's a mercenary. He doesn't care about the hunters. He certainly doesn't care about the hunted. He cares about the paycheck. And the sales pitch. Henriksen does a great job of selling the idea. He's charismatic enough to make you believe that wealthy, bored men of privilege would buy into his line of reasoning, that it is the privilege of the few to hunt the many. With only a few missteps, Henriksen brings Fouchon to life nicely.
In my opinion though, it's Arnold Vosloo as Pik Van Cleaf who steals the show. Ever since seeing Hard Target and Hard Boiled, I've become convinced that it's really the lead henchman you want to keep your eye on. Yeah, the main villain looks good chewing on the scenery and espousing the virtues of evil. But if you want to see how things really get done, you've got to watch the second in command. Whether it's Pik in this film or Mad Dog in Hard Boiled, these guys know their jobs.
I think that's what really appeals to me about Pik. Clearly he enjoys his work. And (unlike Mad Dog) he really doesn't present any redeeming qualities. But he's a consummate professional. Fouchon brings the face, but Pik brings the skills, whether it be tracking, combat, or interrogation. If Fouchon needs something done, Pik gets it done.
Vosloo is perfect. He's got the glare. He looks the part, with his close-cropped haircut and urban fatigues. And his South African accent is ideal. There's something about the combination of British and Dutch (I think) accents that manages to sound cultivated and menacing at the same time. Vosloo's a more visible villain in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. But in my opinion, he's at his best in this film.
Now, about that John Woo style I mentioned. Lots of his favorite trademarks are on display in this film. Fans of his work will recognize many of them, but bear in mind that it's the first time that many American viewers (me included) saw them. So it's understandable if Woo borrows liberally from his own body of Hong Kong work. You get your doves flying in slow motion across the screen. You get your hero detecting something important in a reflection just before the bedlam starts. You've got hero and villain positioned on opposite sides of a wall for a quick banter before they go back to shooting at one another. (I particularly like this one because it highlights one of Woo's strongest themes: That enemies often reflect more about one another than we usually recognize. They're two sides of the same equation.) And you get gratuitous gunplay, with one or more characters wielding paired automatic pistols.
I want to talk about that one for a minute. The double pistol trope has been used liberally by not only Woo and his Hong Kong contemporaries, but by many other directors since. You see it crop up in Walter Hill's Last Man Standing (Bruce Willis), Robert Rodriquez's Desperado (Antonio Banderas), and Luc Besson's The Professional (Jean Reno) to name a few. And those are the good examples. It's been used to lesser effect in countless other films, including the recent vampire/werewolf action movie Underworld.
Here's why John Woo remains the king of ballistic ballet in my mind though: He has a knack for not making excess seem contrived. Let's face it. Two pistols is excessive. But excess is the point. The characters don't use two guns because it means more bullets. Two pistols carry about 30 rounds. One clip for a submachine gun carries about 30 rounds too. And I can pretty much promise that the latter is more accurate. (I tried the two gun thing once when I was younger. Yeah, I suck at shooting. But by the time I actually hit the target, I was close enough to actually kick it. Hard target indeed.)
Nope. Woo's characters use two guns because two guns are excessive. Just like henchmen pouring in from every direction to get shot are excessive. Being able to point two guns in two different directions and still hit two different people is excessive. And bringing two guns to bear on one person, unloading both into the pour sod, is really excessive. But that's why I love John Woo. It's not realistic. It's a continuous assault on the senses. And you need the adrenaline dump just to keep up with the one point of reference around which this frenetic hail of activity revolves.
It's probably a testament to my deep love of the genre that I make this observation at all, but I really appreciate scenes where the hero doesn't present the fact that he's wielding two guns. When the shtick is at it's best, it's broken up so that the character has one weapon then pulls another. It's like the first gun establishes a rhythm and then the addition of the next one (thrown to Boudreaux by his faithful Uncle Douvee, for example) immediately doubles the rhythm of the scene as Boudreaux brings both into play.
That's a terrible explanation. But think about it the next time you see a scene like this. See what you think.
As Van Damme films go, Hard Target is a good one. As John Woo films go (Hong Kong work included), it's one of the weaker ones. But as American John Woo films go, I submit that Hard Target is actually pretty impressive. It showcases many of Woo's strong points (kinetic gunplay, charismatic villains, and unadulterated celebration of mayhem) and succeeds despite the obvious limitations of its leading man.
Alternatively, I could just be under the thrall of Van Damme's hairstyle. A mere dancing puppet suspended at the tips of Geppetto's mullet. As always, you be the judge.
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