In director John Woo’s first stateside outing, a cadre of villains (led by Lance Henriksen) hunts humans in New Orleans for evil kicks. When Yancy Butler’s father disappears, she asks “ragin’ Cajun” Jean-Claude Van Damme to find him. Van Damme soon uncovers the villains’ twisted game, turning the hunters into the hunted. Brimming with verve, Hard Target builds into a bayou blowout. (From Netflix.)
Hard Target was Chuck Pfarrer’s third produced screenplay for Universal Studios. Watch for him in a cameo role in the very first scene as Douglas Binder, a hunted man whose death sets the action in motion.
“Woo doesn’t just direct action — he abstracts it, poeticizes it, explodes its boundaries and breaks it into dazzling new forms. Actors kick, punch, tumble, stab and shoot with a balletic elegance that stems from Woo’s training in dance and the martial arts.”
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
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