A Masterpiece!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Like I always say, I do not write many reviews. First, I only write if the movie is extremely good and 2nd, if people are unnecessarily bashing a good movie or 3rd, it has a low rating. I decided to write this review because of 3rd reason. A different kind of movie from Van Damme, far away from his usual kind of action movies. You see him as an actor than the one kicking-ass. I saw it many years ago and have not forgotten the experience. It kinda reminds me of another movie called The Beast of War (with Kabir Bedi in ensemble cast). Both set in some desert and both unforgettable in a good way. This movie shows you the toll of war on one man and his comrades, a war with guns and knives, not of hi-tech weapons. You should see this damn well made B-movie. One of the most memorable movies I know. There are other very well made movies in usual action settings from Van Damme like "Wake of Death" and "Knock Off" and from Steven Seagal like "Urban Justice", "Pistol Whipped" and " Ruslan: Driven to Kill".

Let me be honest and say it from the beginning. I am a huge Van Damme fan. Now that the biased is declared lets get into the review. Legionnaire was the highest straight to DVD movie ever made. Yes, Van Damme was so huge back in the day's of 90's action films that this film's cost was over $20 million dollars and it didn't even get Cinema release. Which was a shame. The film is definitely not as bad as some of the action movies we see today. Van Damme plays Alain Lefevre, a boxer who is paid to take a dive. Alain is to proud to do that and win's the fight that costs gangsters a lot of money, he tries to flee France and go to America, But after being the fight Alain ends up being chased by police, and finds himself in the French Foreign Legion and deployed to Africa to crush an insurgency in a French colony.You can tell Van Damme co-wrote it: He gives himself a lot of acting time on screen as to try and break away from the typical films he usually does, and not much ass-kicking time, but then again you still have various action clichés popping up and the odd one-liner here and there.Van Damme's martial-arts skills are not showcased here as much as in his other movies. There are a few boxing scenes, and some fighting scene in the end, but really different from all of his other films fight choreography. This really does film like a whole different genre for Van Damme to tackle. 'Legionnaire' is surprisingly good in the end. Van Damme gets to do something different for a change, and I'll give him credit for it. It is more dramatic than most of his other movies, and I can say that the film was still enjoyable to watch and much more enjoyable to watch because of Van Damme's performance.

First of all, we got to know this is a Van Damme movie. Taking that into consideration, it is a very good movie. I've watched it several times now, and it really has something special, at least for me. I watch those ratings, like everybody do, when I'm searching for films to watch. But, the ratings are often very misleading, in both ways. So, I'm watching really bad and boring films with ratings 8, and I get turned off of perfectly good films with ratings from 4.5 to 6. Unfortunately, we can't watch all the films, and there will be missed good films, and a lot of bad films watched, but if you want an interesting story, not expecting too much, and have a lot of nice scenes, then don't miss this one. Give it a chance, it's a good film.

It's 1924; in Marseilles, France and boxer Alain Lefevre goes on to win a fight that he was supposed to take a dive in. He had it all planned out that he would win and then leave with his old girlfriend (who's now with the mobster) to head to America. However things go terribly wrong, and this leads to Alain joining the Foreign Legion to mould a new identity to escape from those mobsters. Although this second chance is going to be a hell of an ordeal. What good can come from a straight-to-video, Jean-Claude Van Damme action film? Well, you know won't be expecting a masterpiece or even a great movie. So it gotta crash and burn. But wait a minute. "Legionnaire" actually breaks that trend, to be one of Van Damme's better movies of recent years. Hey, it's probably my favourite of his and that's saying a lot when compared to "Time Cop", "Universal Cop" and "Nowhere to Run". I don't know why I enjoyed this film so much, but even with my second outing, it delivered the minor goods in a simple, flourishing formula. There's no escaping the old-hat concept creaking in the set-up. It might be a change of scenery. Although, it's no different from a ordinary war film with an assortment of token characters setting up a loyal partnership to pull together when it gets tough going. There's no pretensions to its clichéd material and while, its contrived and heavily laced with them. It seems to get away this dramatic edge and its survival of the fittest message is passionately orchestrated. Most of these men are burdened souls, escaping from life or trying to prove something. This is why these comrades hold a strong emotional rapport with each other, as they know when they signed up there was no release clause to fall back on. The gleefully, corn-riddled script provides plenty of overstrained melodrama and electrically campy banter. The camera-work is swiftly executed and an elegant music score that could turn fiery in an instance are resourcefully worked in. The performances aren't anything special, but surprisingly competent and workable. Vann Damme is *cough* … solid, yes that's true. He's portrayal is quite convincing and subdued in his blistering like attitude. There's good turns by Nicholas Farrell, who chimes in as an optimistically, witty British man, Mackintosh and Daniel Caltagirone as the fickle Guido. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is an excellent character-actor and he does wonders with a plain stereotypical character, Luther. They were quite a likable bunch that we got to know. Steven Berkoff is compulsively good as the hot-wired Sgt. Steinkampf.When watching Van Damme flicks we know there's must be some kick-ass martial arts when he's wiping the floor of the bad dudes. Oh no, that hardly happens here at all. There are a couple of moments, but they are short lived. It plays for a meaningful war film, where its main focus is the high-octane battle scenes than just one-on-one combat. Sometimes the action does play second fiddle to the inner-goings of the men, but the loud, relentless war scenes were well organised and made for a more believable rough 'n' tumble foray. This just proved how much the French army were out of their league when facing the skilfully quick and deadly Arabs on their turf. Here he's no potent individual, but relies on his comrades to look over his back. Few surprises occur and knee-jerk jolts find there way into the warfare. When it came to the final minutes it seemed to lose a bit of creditability, to what has happen before it. An ambitious detour to the formula for Van Damme, but it mostly worked out and delivers undemanding entertainment.