Skip to content
Dom Robinson reviews
Columbia TriStar
- Cert:
- Cat.no: UDR 90047
- Running time: 95 minutes
- Year: 1993
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround, Mono
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Cast and Filmmakers’ Notes, Trailer, Production Notes
Director:
- John Woo
(A Better Tomorrow, Blackjack, Broken Arrow, Bullet in the Head, City on Fire, Face/Off, Hand of Death, Hard Target, Heroes Shed No Tears, Just Heroes, The Killer, Mission: Impossible 2, Once A Thief, Rich And Famous, Violent Tradition )
Producers:
- James Jacks and Sean Daniel
Screenplay:
- Chuck Pfarrer
Cast:
- Chance Boudreaux: Jean-Claude Van Damme (A.W.O.L., Bloodsport, Cyborg, Death Warrant, Desert Heat, Double Impact, Double Team, Hard Target, Legionnaire, Knock Off, Maximum Risk, Nowhere To Run, The Quest, Streetfighter, Sudden Death, Timecop, Universal Soldier, Universal Soldier: The Return)
Emil Fouchon: Lance Henriksen (Dead Man, Hard Target, House 3, Jennifer 8, Johnny Handsome, No Escape, The Quick and the Dead, The Right Stuff, TV: Millennium, Tales From The Crypt)
Natasha Binder: Yancy Butler (Drop Zone, The Ex, Fast Money, Hard Target, The Hit List)
Pik Van Cleaf: Arnold Vosloo (Darkman 2 & 3, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Hard Target, The Mummy, The Progeny, TV: American Gothic, Nash Bridges)
Uncle Douvee: Wilford Brimley (Borderline, Cocoon 1 & 2, The Firm, Hard Target, The Progeny, Tender Mercies)
Fat man: “I was only joking when I said I wanted cosmetic surgery done quickly !”
Hard Target is one of Jean Claude Van Damme‘s biggest films to date and certainly one of his most enjoyable, but for my money there’s only really this and the original Universal Soldier which I could watch more than once.
The basis of the plot was ripped from a French film, if I recall correctly, the name of which I don’t know, but I presume it wasn’t meant to feature the ‘Muscles from Brussels’ getting his lips badly twisted around some dodgy dialogue albeit a script that does contain some clever one-liners.
In a game of cat-and-mouse Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen) sets up games for bored tycoons to play. It involves strapping a huge wodge of cash round the waist of a Vietnam veteran who has nothing left to live for, then telling them to run. All they have to do is get to the perimeter of the game area first and they keep the money. Sounds simple – but not when you’re being chased by very rich men with very big guns, since you’re more likely to die a horrible, violent death than to escape with the loot.
For reasons that don’t really matter, drifter Chance Boudreaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) sticks his foot in and intends to pick off the bad guys one by one. You know he’ll start with the small fry and end up with Henriksen at the end. This was John Woo‘s first action film for Hollywood and his double-handed bullet-ballet techniques come into play several times very violently as a result, not to mention his exceptional slo-mo shots. It’s fun to compare this film with the heavily-censored version that BBC1 occasionally show. On there, men die after three bullets a piece rather than the 300 they seem to absorb here.
There’s also a love interest in the form of Denise Richards-wannabe Yancy Butler who couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag and as most of the main characters want to pretend to be French, it’s anything but a French accent that Wilford Brimley puts on as Chance’s Uncle Douvee.
While Henriksen makes for a fine adversary, there’s an even better performance with even better one-liners from Arnold Vosloo as his right-hand man Pik Van Cleaf, one of his show-stealing scenes being in the car scene pictured above and below this section.
Pik: “I’ve almost perfected the ‘Daniella Westbrook’ nose-job.” The picture is presented in the original 1.85:1 ratio with no obvious artifacts, but it is not anamorphic, which is a great shame as the Region 1 DVD is and it could’ve made a brilliant action film look at its best. The average bitrate is a superb 7.91Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.
The sound is Dolby Digital 5.1 for English and French languages, while the rest get short-changed. Whatever sound format you use, make sure it’s loud and throughout every part of the film it never fails to impress. The neighbours had better not be light sleepers!
The attempt to recreate Smith & Jones head-to-head sketches was laughable.
Extras :
Chapters : Only 16 chapters, the usual Universal-via-Columbia offering, so could use more.
Languages/Subtitles : Dolby Digital 5.1 in English and subtitles for the same language.
And there’s more… : But it’s the standard fare – a Theatrical Trailer, a few pages of Production Notes and the Cast and Filmmakers’ Notes are brief biogs and filmogs for director Woo and the other cast members listed atop apart from Vosloo.
Menu : A static and silent menu with a shot of Van Damme looking mean and moody on the front cover, plus the basic options. No alarms and no surprises.
If you ever have a grenade down your trousers and this happens when you try to disable it… you’ve got problems! Overall, Hard Target was never going to win any Oscars for best adapted screenplay or acting ability, but for sheer entertainment value on a Friday night it’s very hard to beat, even seven years on.
It was one of the first PAL Laserdiscs I ever bought and now I’m glad to have it in my DVD collection. Just a shame it isn’t anamorphic and wasn’t treated to any more extras than the standard fare dished out by back catalogue Universal releases, published via Columbia TriStar.
DVD Trivia: Early posters for this film credited the directorial efforts to one “John Wood” (!)
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.