Retroactive Academy Award to Jan Alexander, credited Hair Stylist for Jean-Claude Van Damme on Hard Target (1993) and crafting one of the finest mullets to ever grace an action movie. Even though the theatrical release version of Hard Target, which I have watched countless times, is not John Woo’s director’s cut (apparently he was overruled by Van-Damme), there’s so much poetic style and over the top flair on display. Infamously Woo’s American debut as a director after acclaimed Hong Kong action masterpieces like The Killer and Hard Boiled, Hard Target also stands as a trash action classic and my favourite Van Damme flick, so much better than people at the time gave it credit for (and as much an equal, and possibly even better than Woo’s later more acclaimed American epics like Face/Off). Countless slow-mo hero shots of Van Damme as Chance Boudreaux, the Cajun drifter (naturally with a special forces background), a cocky character, yes, but a righteous avenger of the dispossessed and homeless, settling the score against the compelling villains played by Lance Henriksen (as always, giving it more class and depth than needed) and Arnold Vosloo (perfectly nasty) in the umpteenth retread of The Most Dangerous Game i.e. the wealthy hunting people for human sport (this time in New Orleans!). Give it up for Yancy Butler’s eyebrows (she’s the out-of-towner in The Big Easy who hires Van Damme to find her Vietnam vet father) and Wilford Brimley (RIP) as Van Damme’s Cajun uncle, riding high from an explosion with a bow and arrow in hand, in the one perfect image of this movie. Shout out to the symbolic pigeons (this is John Woo, remember?), a silver shotgun photographed like Excalibur, a rattlesnake scene for the ages, and excessive applause for every-time Van Damme caps off pumping a henchman full of lead with a round-house kick to the face. To quote Van Damme in the movie, after shooting a van so much that it explodes, “Yeah!!!” Recommended.
VHS Tracking 