Maximum Risk is the first US feature film from acclaimed Hong Kong director Ringo Lam with Van Damme as star. He previously brought in John Woo to direct action classic Hard Target, but JCVD and John Woo didn't exactly hit it off creatively. Ringo Lam and JCVD worked well together and would continue to work together on two more films(Replicant and In Hell). Maximum Risk is much different than the movies JCVD normally works on, it is pretty dark, gritty and has less stylish action that he is known for. The film is mostly devoid of humor and is presented in a serious and more realistic manner. Ringo Lam gets Van Damme to focus more on his acting and by the time he works with JCVD next, his acting improves significantly. While the whole twin brother plot has been done to death at this point, JCVD is a cop and must investigate the circumstances of his estranged twin brother's death. Natasha Henstridge is good in this as JCVD's love interest and damsel in distress. I would regard this as more of a thriller than straight up action movie, but as a mash up of genres it does it fairly well. This is also the 1st action movie I seen that involves the Russian mob, which nowadays is common with movies like John Wick, The Equalizer, etc. As a whole this was done well and JCVD would work next with legendary Hong Kong director/producer Tsui Hark on Knock Off which is unfortunate because that movie is a giant turkey of a movie, completely terrible. But that is another story...

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?

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.