A Masterpiece!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

A surprisingly complex thriller from Ringo Lam, a noted director in the action genre, making his first western film. The amount of sub plots help to make this one more interesting than most, as throughout the film Van Damme is being chased around by four or five different groups of people, this makes for entertaining viewing. Loyalties change, baddies come and go, and the film flies by with many varied and exciting action sequences filling out the time. I liked it a lot.Thankfully, the film is not solely full of martial arts or just plain shooting. It's a mixture of both. The various shoot-outs are well staged and choreographed, while Van Damme gets to deliver some really hefty kicks to his enemies. And it's a memorable group of baddies this time around, including corrupt FBI agents, Russian assassins and the Russian Mob. One blond-haired hulk is virtually indestructible, and the three or four fight scenes between him and Van Damme are probably some of the slickest, neatest fights that Van Damme has ever put on film. The final battle in the lift is great.The characters in this film are slightly more fleshed out than usual, and the baddies at least have a reason to want Van Damme dead. There are also plot threads, including a romantic one between Van Damme and Henstridge, although thankfully this is kept to a minimum. Also, we get to see some surprisingly poignant moments, which are not necessarily laughable (although you may scoff). Jean-Claude Van Damme looks pretty old and tired in this film, but I guess that's because he was suffering from the cocaine addiction thing at the time. Still, he's as powerful and agile as ever (or is that the stuntman?), jumping through windows, falling from heights and generally being an all-round action man (but more believable than most, thanks to his everyday hairstyle and clothes, this Van Damme is closer to reality than in his other films). Natasha Henstridge is adequate as the love interest, but quite shallow really. The rest of the villains are all memorable and eminently hissable.However, the acting is not really the main priority with Van Damme's films. It's the action people watch for, and this film does not disappoint. So many different things happen in so many places (the film keeps shifting location), and there are some inspired set pieces (the entire bank thing is memorable), and even a fight between Van Damme and a chainsaw-wielding villain at the end. What more could you possibly want? I know Van Damme is not one of the most popular stars, far from it, and the general consensus is that his films are cheesy, but I'm just finding these early ones to be better and better as time goes on. MAXIMUM RISK is criminally overlooked and deserves far more respect than it currently has.

Alain Moreau (Van Damme) is a French cop who just discovered he has a twin brother. His name was Mikhail Suverov and he worked for the Russian mob. To get to the truth about his life, he travels to New York City, specifically the Little Odessa area. While there he must fight gangsters, as well as double-dealing FBI agents. But just about everyone thinks he's Mikhail. Luckily his brother's girlfriend Alex (Henstridge) is along for the ride. Now Alain has to make it back to France in one piece, but not before causing some major Van Damage in the big apple! Maximum Risk is from the good old days when Van Damme movies went to the theater. Thus, it has a high-quality look and feel, and seems to have a decent budget behind it. It's nice to see the high production values used well by the great Ringo Lam, who would later team up with Van Damme again for Replicant and In Hell (2003).It must be in Van Damme's contract to be in movies where he plays two roles. Most actors never get this chance, but Van Damme has. FIVE times. The movies being Double Impact (1991), Maximum Risk, Replicant (2001), Timecop (1994) and The Order (2001). Just why he feels there aren't enough Van Dammes currently on earth, outside of ego, has yet to be explained. To further emphasize his "double" life, here, in Maximum Risk, Van Damme seeing his reflection is a theme throughout the movie. Glasses, windows, picture frames, and of course mirrors are all employed for psychological purposes. But really this movie is an entertaining thriller that is palatable for general audiences. You don't have to be a Van Damme or martial arts freak to enjoy Maximum Risk.Say what you will about him, but Van Damme has more emotion than Chuck Norris. Or Don "The Dragon" Wilson. Speaking of Wilson, just as his Bloodfist movies are all 80 minutes, it seems another contract demand of Van Damme is that his movies be at least 100 minutes. Maximum Risk is no exception, so naturally there's some filler, but not much. And a classic cliché is on display: the "wacky taxi driver" is on show once again, but at least this time he has a more substantial part to play than usual.Following another JCVD rule, there has to be a scene where he gets nude or semi-nude. Why, we don't know. Here it's the time-honored bathhouse fight, also seen in such movies as Red Heat (1988) and Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991). But at least there's some Natasha Henstridge nudity as well to right the ship. Henstridge, in only her second-ever movie role (after Species, 1995), looks great, and it's sad to see her end up in Scott Wiper crud like A Better Way to Die (2000), but hey, you gotta make a living.Maximum Risk is solid, undemanding entertainment seemingly made to make the careers of Van Damme and Ringo Lam go over well with larger audiences. Watching it today, it's classic 90's fun that's easy to like.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

This has to be the best Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie he has made. It has it all, and it has it in spades. This movie is 100 minutes, and 95 of those are pure action.You have great car chases through the streets of Nice and New York.You have a whole lot of people the Government is not going to have to arrest and try because they will not be around.You have three, count them three outstanding fights between Jean-Claude Van Damme and the biggest, baddest dude you can imagine.And, you have Natasha Henstridge in the bathroom making love and giving us a view we will long remember.What more can you ask for?

Maximum Risk starts in the South of France where ex-Russian mobster Mikhail Suverov (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is killed in an accident while trying to escape from two FBI agents chasing him. The police become involved & detective Sebastien (Jean-Hugues Anglade) recognises Mikhail as his close friend & fellow cop Alain Moreau (Jean-Claude Van Damme), it quickly turns out that Mikhail & Alain were identical twins separated at birth. Wanting to know about his brother & why he was killed Alain follows a trail back to New York where he discovers his brother Mikhail was involved with Russian mobsters & a beautiful waitress named Alex Minetti (Natasha Henstridge), Alain also discovers the Russian mobsters want him dead not to mention the FBI who also want a piece of him...Making his American action film debut this run of the mill JCVD action film was directed by Ringo Lam & was the second time a famed Asian action film director made his American feature film debut with JCVD after John Woo made probably JCVD's best film Hard Target (1993) & JCVD would also star in Hark Tsui's first American film as well with the terrible Double Team (1997). Anyway, here the almost humourless script by Larry Ferguson feels like a collection of action film clichés loosely strung together with little regard for a plot, the narrative or the audience. There's the JCVD character who is not only a cop but also an ex-soldier just so he can really handle himself, there's evil mobsters who can't shoot straight, there's a pretty blonde woman who is entirely surplus to the plot & is included solely for her looks, there's various fights & chases, there's a 'big' tough bad guy who JCVD has to have a climatic showdown with towards the end, there's crooked FBI agents & not much of a plot to speak of. Most of Maximum Risk just feels like JCVD going from one fight to another on the basic pretence that they are after his twin brother & it just gets old very quickly & the whole plot is uninspiring, it's predictable, it's silly & it's throughly routine. I suppose it's watchable, there's nothing spectacularly wrong with it & it moves along at a decent pace but I just can't muster up much enthusiasm for it at all & I consider myself a JCVD fan. Maximum Risk was the second time JCVD played dual roles in a film the first being Double Impact (1991) where, like in Maximum Risk, he played identical twins & then he went on to play two roles in both Replicant (2001) & The Order (2001). Having said that his twin dies in the opening sequence so there are never two JCVD's on screen at once in Maximum Risk.I have to say that I didn't like the way Maximum Risk was shot at all, the fact I saw a pan and scan version rather than a full 2:35:1 widescreen edition didn't help but the camera angles are weird & they just don't capture the action that well, the length of shot is very short & the editing is just very bad & annoying as it makes it difficult so get a grip of what is going on & finally there's that horrible shaky camera syndrome which just adds to the general irritation. The action feels routine, the fights are alright but nothing special while the chases are ruined by being poorly shot & aren't much to begin with anyway. Also what does Lam have against plastic garden furniture? The amount of scenes in which he crashes cars into plastic chairs & tables outside cafés seems to be too numerous to be a coincidence.With a supposed budget of about $25,000,000 Maximum Risk really should have been better than this, I think it's a throughly routine & badly shot action flick that apart from one or two car chases & some expensive location work looks like it was a made-for-telly effort. The locations sound impressive having been shot in Paris, Canada & New York. The acting is poor, I think JCVD is terrible in this while all the Russian accents are unconvincing although at least Hanstridge is easy on the eyes & she goes topless briefly in one scene.Maximum Risk is one of JCVD's more routine efforts, I found it a really disappointing film that was badly shot & written. Having said that it passes the time & is nowhere near his worst although at the same time it's nowhere near his best. After several big hits like Universal Soldier (1992), Hard Target, Timecop (1994) & Sudden Death (1995) you can trace the demise of JCVD pretty much back to Maximum Risk.