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Dom Robinson reviews

Nowhere To Run

When the law can't protect the innocent,
the only hero left is an outlaw.

Distributed by

Columbia TriStar

Cat.no: CDR 98646
Cert: 15
Running time: 91 minutes
Year: 1993
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 28 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
Languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
Subtitles: 20 languages available
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £19.99
Extras : Scene index, Filmographies, Theatrical Trailer

Director:

Robert Harmon

Gotti, The Hitcher

Producers:

Craig Baumgarten and Gary Adelson

Screenplay:

Joe Eszterhas, Leslie Bohem and Randy Feldman

Music:

Cast:

Sam Gillen: Jean Claude Van Damme

A.W.O.L., Bloodsport, Cyborg, Death Warrant, Double Impact, Double Team, Hard Target, Legionnaire, Knock Off, Maximum Risk, The Quest, Streetfighter, Sudden Death, Timecop, Universal Soldier

Clydie: Rosanna Arquette

After Hours, The Big Blue, Black Rainbow, Crash, Desperately Seeking Susan, Flight of the Intruder, Gone Fishin', Hope Floats, Pulp Fiction, Silverado, S.O.B.

Mookie: Kieran Culkin

Father of the Bride 1 & 2, Home Alone 1 & 2, The Mighty, Only The Lonely

Mr. Dunston: Ted Levine

Betrayed, Flubber, Heat, Ironweed, Mad City, Next of Kin, The Silence of the Lambs, Switchback, The Wild Wild West

Franklin Hale: Joss Ackland

Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey, The Hunt for Red October, It Couldn't Happen Here, A Kid in King Arthur's Court, The Mighty Ducks 1 & 3, Miracle on 34th Street (1994), The Sicilian, Surviving Picasso, Swept from the Sea, White Mischief

Nowhere To Run is another Jean Claude Van Damme action film in which he plays an outlaw escaping from a prison bus after it is forced to flip over after his friend gets in the way on purpose. As the law arrives and they drive off, his friend gets in the way again as the police take a pot-shot leaving Van Damme alone. He stops off in a town being bought out by property-developer Franklin Hale (Joss Ackland), but the young widow he meets, Clydie (Rosanna Arquette), refuses to move, putting a dampner on Hale's plans to refurbish the town. Those who make a stand are forced to leave as their houses and barns mysteriously catch fire...

Brother-of-Macaulay, Kieran Culkin turns up as Rosanna's son who befriends Van Damme after he is found sleeping in the woods in a tent (where did he get that from if he escaped with nothing ?) and Ted Levine plays Ackland's right-hand man Mr. Dunston who is there to do all the running around that Ackland's too old to do now.

The picture quality is mostly good but there's a slight amount of grain from time to time, which isn't really noticeable from the usual viewing distance. The film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 1.85:1, is enhanced for 16:9 widescreen televisions - thus allowing for 33% higher resolution - and the average bitrate is a good 5.55 Mb/s, regularly peaking over 7Mb/s.

The sound is fine in terms of clarity, but while a general action film would get five stars this one loses one for having so few action scenes to make use of it. Each of the five languages are Dolby Surround only but presented via a Dolby Digital stream.

Extras :

Chapters :

There are the usual 28 chapters covering the 91 minutes, plus the original theatrical trailer.

Languages/Subtitles :

There's five languages on the disc, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish all in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby surround), which is surprising because Dolby Digital 5.1 had been invented the year before so it's a shame Robert Harmon didn't see fit to use it. As for subtitles, this is a record for Columbia as it comes in TWENTY languages : English, French, German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Hindi, Turkish, Arabic, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish and Italian. However, in English I'm sure Van Damme doesn't go hunting for "dear".

Filmographies :

Brief filmographies are available for Van Damme, Culkin, Levine, Ackland and Rosanna Arquette.

Menu :

The menu is static with no music and very basic with a few pictures. It's also a bit 'sticky' in that when you come to a new screen the options don't change for the first couple of seconds. On playing the disc you see the Columbia TriStar logo before the main menu appears.

Upon selecting the "Start Movie" option, you'll first see a "Sony Pictures DVD Center" logo, the copyright logo and then the film itself. No DD helicopter demo this time obviously.

It makes me laugh when the trailer says "Van Damme as you've never seen him before" since it's Van Damme as we've *ALWAYS* seen him before, unless it means that we've never seen his films get this bad before. Any action that comes is very few and far between and apart from one brief fight early on, there's nothing else until we're into the last half-hour. Even then it doesn't classify as highly as action-by-numbers since it doesn't even reach the first positive integer! On a motorbike chase, Van Damme always manages to evade the cops yet they routinely crash into each other.

Rosanna Arquette's only role is to provide the love interest which is equally dull and I've only given the film half-a-mark for the two moments in which she gets her kit off as it's the only point of interest. The director doesn't even bother with continuity at times, such as 80 minutes in when Ted Levine is seen breaking two standalone windows, yet the camera filming from the distance shows them as part of a three-window set. Stick to either Universal Soldier or Double Team.

FILM	 		: ½
PICTURE QUALITY		: ****
SOUND QUALITY		: ****
EXTRAS			: **
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: **½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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