Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 136: Hard Target
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Merry Christmas! On our episode for Christmas, we watched Jean Claude Van Damme in Hard Target directed by John Woo. It's a Christmas movie.
We make our show on Zencastr, and you can too! Follow this link to sign up now!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Zencastr Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
This show is recorded using Zencaster. If you are a podcaster, or you want to be a podcaster, and you want to be able to record remotely, you can do so using Zencaster. They also have hosting options, and you can let them know that we sent you. Follow the link in our show notes, or in the episode description, and sign up for an account on Zencaster now to start recording your own podcast.
Introducing Movie Fighters and 'Hard Target' Discussion
00:01:03
Speaker
Ring the bell, Boudreau? This is Movie Fighters, the show where Chris Simms and I, Matt Wilson, we watch movies and we beat them up. And it's December and it's time for us to answer the question that everyone has been asking for years. Is Hard Target a Christmas movie? Yes. Yes, it is.
00:01:36
Speaker
That's right. But s it's more of a Noel movie.
00:01:44
Speaker
Joya Noel. Joya Noel, my mommy. We are watching the 1993 American action film Hard Target starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as our Christmas episode of movie fighters. Because folks, it's been a year. It's been a hard year. It's been a year.
00:02:07
Speaker
And we just wanted- We also deserve a nice thing. We just want to do something nice. We want to do something fun. We want to get something nice in our stocking. And that nice thing is being able to watch the 1993 American action film, Hard Target, directed by John Woo. John Woo's first American film.
John Woo's American Debut and Cast Highlights
00:02:31
Speaker
His American debut. After making- Or debut.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, after making some stone-cold fucking classics in Hong Kong. Yeah, I mean, this is post-hard-boiled. It's his movie immediately after Hardboiled. Yeah. So, like, it's one hit after another, but he had also made The Killer before this. He had made both A Better Tomorrow movies, and he would go on to make in the U.S.
00:03:05
Speaker
Broken Arrow, Face Off, Mission Impossible 2. That one where ah where where Thomas Cruise has the real bad hair. He's got that old Peter Parker hair in that one. The one where Tom Cruise has the worst hair but also has some cool motorcycle stunts in it. So yeah, we're gonna have a fun time and we're gonna watch Hard Target on this episode. The rest of the cast of Hard Target is absolutely wild. Yancy Butler. Witchblade herself. Witchblade herself is the is the female lead of the film. The bad guys are Lance Henriksen and Arnold Vaslu. The mummy? We got Witchblade and the mummy in this. We got Witchblade and the mummy slash dark man? That's right.
00:04:00
Speaker
And Lance Henriksen. And Lance Henriksen, who you may remember from Super Mario Brothers, the movie. i You know what? I do remember him from his one scene. yeah yeah His cameo. That's right. ah Also in this movie are a lot of action stars you may not have heard of, but also Wilford Brimley.
00:04:27
Speaker
An action star you have heard of. An action star you have heard of, yeah. ah And Ted Raimi. Big Ted. Also from Dark Man. Well, of course he's from Dark Man.
00:04:43
Speaker
it's It's honestly weird to see Ted Raimi in something not directed by Sam Raimi. Yeah, I don't think Sam Raimi had anything to do with this movie. I mean, it's Ted Raimi's role is tiny. He plays a man on the street. I also know Ted Raimi has been a working actor. Like, you know, he was he was on Sequest, DSV. Yeah, it's kind of like Sean Gunn appearing in non James Gunn films. Yeah. Which he has. Hey, nothing against Sean Gunn. I was on a boat with him once.
Humorous Tangent on 'Gilmore Girls'
00:05:21
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:05:22
Speaker
Nothing against him at all. Ted Raimi would have crushed Gilmore Girls. Whoever had to play Kirk on Gilmore Girls was gonna get a reputation as annoying because he is an annoying character, full stop. No, um Gilmore Girls is a show about a bunch of terrible people who live in a town full of psychopaths. Yes, yes, very much so. And Rory Gilmore is the biggest heel on television.
00:05:52
Speaker
Also true. Yeah. Justice for Lorelei. Uh, did you know, Chris, that there is a sequel to Hard Target called Hard Target 2? Release... Hard to-er-get? Hard to-er-get? Released in 2016? I wonder, Target, what is, like, the obvious? Come on. But they called it Hard Target 2. It was released in 2016 by Universal's 1440 Entertainment label.
00:06:22
Speaker
and it stars Scott Adkins, because of course it does. yeah Now, I was thinking momentarily of Scott Adson. No, no, no, not Scott Adson, who I met. He's a surprisingly tall cast member of 30 Rock. Yes, Scott Adson, who I met. I have met Scott Adson, very nice guy.
Decision to Watch 'Hard Target' and Rental Woes
00:06:42
Speaker
i I had a conversation with him about that one time he was on the Tenacious D TV show. Yeah.
00:06:49
Speaker
scott Scott adds it, a ah shoot comics guy who has an amazing collection of original art, like like commissions and sketches. Incredible. Incredible. ah But we're not watching Hard Target 2, and we're not going to watch Hard Target 2, directed by Roel Rayen. Is that a Cajon name? It could be. Is that Norm Dufilm? But Scott Adkins doesn't.
00:07:17
Speaker
Scott Atkins does not play a Cajun character. He plays a character named Wes Baylor. But nonetheless. Now who the fuck is Scott Atkins? he's ah He's in a bunch of like, direct-to-video action movies. Okay. But he's also, like, he's he's parlayed that into a career of like, showing up in stuff for real heads to know about.
00:07:44
Speaker
Like, he wore a bunch of makeup and played a character in John Wick 4. Okay, okay. He was like the like the crime boss guy with a bunch of gold teeth. Right, right. Now, he is, according to Wikipedia, known for his collaborations with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yeah, I think they did did martial arts together or something. They are connected in some way, yeah.
00:08:13
Speaker
I don't quite know what it is, though. Through the bonds of battle. Through the bonds of battle, yeah. ah But anyway, forget Scott Atkins, because we're not he's not in this movie that we're watching, 1993's Hard Target. We're watching the original with Jean-Claude Van Damme with the best haircut in movie history. It's pretty good. It's pretty good.
00:08:39
Speaker
we'll We'll discuss further a little bit later, but for now we're going to watch Hard Target. Now, one thing we discovered, this is this is how much of this we wanted to do and how much of a treat to ourselves that it is. Hard Target is not streaming for free anywhere. So we are going to rent it on Amazon, but The good news is, and hopefully by the time this episode goes up, this will still be true, you can rent hard target for, oh, nope, it went back. No, it is not true. I was going to disillusion you, unfortunately. It is not true. When I checked last week, it was 99 cents to rent. I mean, look, it's worth $4. But current now it's $4 to rent, but we're still gonna do it.
00:09:34
Speaker
I took a hard look and I was like, what if I go ahead and just roll that onto $14.99 and buy is this bad boy digitally? I mean, you know, that that is a valid choice. Certainly a valid choice. But we're going to pay them. It is on Blu-ray. You can get it on DVD for $6.95 or if you're a real head, you can get it on Blu-ray for $25.33.
00:10:03
Speaker
$25.33. That's a lot. that's It is a lot. All right. We're going to rent it on Amazon for $3.99. I was hoping it would still be $0.99, which it was like four days ago, but they knew this was going to happen. They knew this was coming. They were like, get that back up to four bucks by Monday. Listen, Jazzy Jeff Beazey, we know he's a listener.
00:10:33
Speaker
Uh-huh. Not a sponsor. But could be. But could be. Shit. You can afford it. I'll take his money. I'll pretend Rings of Power's good.
00:10:49
Speaker
Alright, so you can rent this on on Amazon for $3.99. That's what we're gonna do. And after that, we're gonna watch the movie.
00:11:01
Speaker
And after that, we're gonna come back and talk about it. You're gonna hear a little musical interlude. You can watch the movie as that musical interlude plays or, you know, you gotta pause it. It's not long enough for you to watch the whole movie. Yeah, that's true. Either way, we're gonna watch the movie. You can come back whether you've seen it or not. And we will talk about Hard Target, the Christmas movie.
Does 'Hard Target' Qualify as a Christmas Movie?
00:11:24
Speaker
Hey, Matt, before we go into that, um can i can I give you
00:11:32
Speaker
Like like we're doing this for the holidays and so I do want to share like with you and the listener like Kind of a holiday time sentiment. Yeah, please Don't hump what you can't kill Merry Christmas everybody. Merry Christmas We'll be back with the full rundown of hard target
00:12:12
Speaker
And we are back from watching Hard Target, which confirmed is a Christmas movie. Is a Christmas movie? Because in one scene, there's a Christmas tree in the background. let told And also, as you noted very early on, everyone's wearing layers.
00:12:35
Speaker
And it's, it's New Orleans. It's cold weather in New Orleans, which is a limited and time of year. Yeah. So Christmas movie confirmed get like confirmed. Absolutely. No question. Hard target is a Christmas movie.
Plot Kickoff: Vet Hunt Business in New Orleans
00:12:56
Speaker
So the movie begins with a chase scene.
00:13:04
Speaker
through the streets of New Orleans, where a Vietnam War veteran, who at this point, we don't know who this is, but we will learn that this is Douglas Bender, who is the dad of Yancy Butler's character. He's being chased through the streets by a group of guys who seem to be hunting him. One guy in particular keeps shooting these like,
00:13:34
Speaker
metal arrows at him. But they're basically bullets, like it's not even a crossbow. He's shooting these arrows out of a gun. He's got like Chewbacca's gun. Yeah. Like fully. But ah there's so many shots like close up shots of this arrow, like flying.
00:13:57
Speaker
And at one point we were like, it's wild that Sam Raimi is not involved in this movie. And then almost immediately there was an executive producer Sam Raimi credit. Yes. Which I know that part of the story of this movie is that John would like in the same way that like Jackie Chan ah you know did his first American movie and the studio was very picky about it and kind of wouldn't let him do what he wanted to do. I know that that's kind of the story of this movie as well with John Woo, like when foreign directors come to America and and do their Hollywood movie. And I wonder if there was like any conflict between Sam Raimi
00:14:46
Speaker
and John Woo because there's a lot of Sam Raimi in this. Actually, I know the answer to this because I recently watched a video or like an interview. It was something where there was an explanation of John Woo's first movie. Okay. And I think it was a thing where Universal Pictures, the studio behind this movie, and you know it's the studio behind this movie because the Universal, there are three different Universal Pictures logos at the beginning.
00:15:26
Speaker
Part of their like handholding of John Woo and his first American movie was to kind of pair him with another American director to like keep him
00:15:41
Speaker
Like, so he, like, Sam Raimi basically was hired for this movie. He's credited as as an executive producer. Universal hired Sam Raimi to kind of like oversee John Woo on the making of this movie. And make sure he didn't like, you know, get out of pocket, you know? Yeah, which I've always thought is like, such a like, such a weird thing, because like, like you Like, you wanted him to make a movie, right? Like, you saw his movies and you thought they were pretty good, right? So, but what happened was Sam Raimi shows up on set and John Mu was like, Hey, you know, what do you, whatever you want me to do? I don't want this to be a ah conflicting relationship. And Sam Raimi was just like, make the movie you want to make. Cool. Hire my brother.
00:16:37
Speaker
As long as you put my brother in this, we are cool. yeah Literally, Sam Raimi just told him, make the movie you want to make. And Raimi said, John Woo at 70% is still going to blow away most American action directors working at 100%. I mean, that is that is a million percent true. Yes. So basically, Sam Raimi was hired to reign John Woo in but then, in fact, was like,
00:17:03
Speaker
didn't do anything to hold John Woo back at all. like Basically, he said, like if John Woo had a question, he would answer it, or if he needed him to talk to somebody for him, he would do that. But like otherwise, he did nothing to hand to hinder or hamper John Woo at any point.
00:17:20
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. Because I wouldn't pick... Sam Raimi's not the guy that I'd pick to rein anyone in unless it's specifically financially. Yeah. Because like Sam Raimi knows how to like get the most out of a budget. like That's why Spider-Man still looks pretty good. I'm sure that is part of why he was chosen to be the person to do that. because Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker
Hard Target was about a $20 million dollars movie, which, even by 1993 standards, is pretty cheap. Yeah.
Is 'Hard Target' the Worst Movie That Rules?
00:17:57
Speaker
And it made $75 million at the box office. So, success. Box office success. Hard Target. It's a hit. Anyway. ah Here's my question for you having just watched this movie, Matt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
Is this the worst movie that still fucking rules? Oh, there are worse movies that rule. Do any of them rule as hard as this movie ah while being as bad as this movie? This movie is objectively bad and also owns. But it's okay. It's bad, but it's also, but the parts of it that are good,
00:18:44
Speaker
are more than enough. You know what I mean? Like... You know what I mean? Yes, I know. It rules. It's like this movie was a a blast to watch. 96 minutes, baby. like ah The bad of this movie is like almost 100% the script. The script is dog shit. Yes, correct.
00:19:09
Speaker
like ah so Sorry, Chuck Farrer, the writer of this movie, the script is dogshit. But the script doesn't matter. Like, uh, no, not at all. Not in the slightest. Like, there's dialogue that is just nothing nonsense filler. But who cares? yeah Like, you get to see Van Damme kick a guy off the hood of a car.
00:19:38
Speaker
The acting is is not great. um No two characters have the same accent. That's true. i But see, I think that acting is exactly what it needs to be. like Well, okay. Van Damme is being Van Damme, right? like That's it. Yes. Yancy Butler is just full on bad. but You know what? We should save this for high points and low points. Yeah. and just But I feel like...
00:20:07
Speaker
This, it's worth noting that this is also relatively early in Van Damme's career because he's not very good in it.
Character Backstories and Plot Development
00:20:17
Speaker
And I think, you know, Jean-Claude Van Damme, hot take, not a bad actor. He got better. Like like definitely got better. Like um obviously was not the best at the start of his career, but like,
00:20:34
Speaker
I mean, this is a couple years after Bloodsport, which he's also not a great actor in. I think he's actually a pretty good actor by the time we get to Street Fighter. I think he's very watchable in Street Fighter. In Street Fighter, larry he's doing, he's he's learned to wink at the camera by the point of Street Fighter. Yeah. But certainly by late career, like but when he's like Elder Statesman Van Dam. Yeah, by like JCVD. Yeah, he's a good actor by then, yeah. um But anyway, so.
00:21:05
Speaker
they're chasing this guy around. We see Lance Henriksen and he says, if he makes it to the, he we can't let him make it to the river. And this guy is like almost to the river. He's running along like the dock and he is then shot with an arrow like through the chest and he falls through the dock and falls into the water. And so What we'll learn later in the movie is that this is Lance Henriksen's company, business? It's his business. That enables rich people to hunt military veterans for sport. Yeah. They they specifically get military veterans, but they get homeless military veterans ah because the the that is who is desperate enough to
00:22:04
Speaker
Uh, to be hunted for sport for $10,000, which even in 1990 money is not a lot. I mean, it's, let's see, let's see what $10,000 in 1993 move money is now. Uh, but yeah, it's, I currently don't have a job, man. Uh-huh. And I feel like it would take more than that to get me to be hunted for sport. I, yes, for sure. For sure.
00:22:34
Speaker
It's $21,833 today. Yeah. Maybe not as much as I would have thought, but nonetheless, it it's $21,000, almost $22,000. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not quite ah quite a enough. I'm glad you said that because I felt like you were leaning to, I mean, I'd be hunted for sport for $22,000, which I think we could maybe rustle up. I wanted to see what the conversion was. ah Yeah, that's that's a no-go. What is the Patreon goal? for Is it $22,000 a month and we will pick a listener and let them hunt you for sport?
00:23:16
Speaker
So ah after that after that opening sequence with the hunting, which by the way, the opening credits are going over that sequence. Something I said on Friends Till the End recently is that any time a movie has like opening credits on the screen over the action, like over shots where the credits are kind of like at the bottom. That always makes me feel like it's TV. Yes. Like movies don't really have opening credits anymore. They used to a lot more often, but especially when it's not just title cards on like a black screen, when it's like,
00:24:02
Speaker
words over video that feels like TV. And then it does an actual act break at the end of the credits as well. Yes, which is very funny, which is very funny. Like it's, like it's about to go to a commercial for Tide. So then we see, uh,
00:24:26
Speaker
Yancy Butler, Natasha or Nat, as she prefers to be called, show up in New Orleans and she starts asking around in Nalins. There we go. She starts asking a around around about her dad who's missing. So she goes to the police station. She tries to ask there about her dad. The police are on strike.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, we do see them like there's a picket line. Yes, in front of the station. But there is one cop working. And that is Casey Lemmons. She's a detective, she's working and she takes the report on the missing person. And then she is told or case or ah the detective her name is
00:25:25
Speaker
detective mitchell Detective Mitchell tells Yancy Butler like, hey, be careful out there. I'm going to be filling out one of these on you. Then Yancy Butler just kind of like goes out into the street and starts asking people if they've seen that happens after she goes to the place with the bad gumbo.
00:25:43
Speaker
Well, first she, doesn't she talk to the the veteran guy first? No, she goes to the cops because she gets mugged. Oh, that's right. Yeah. She goes, yes, just she goes to, we see her, but she's kind of like out on the street just asking, right? And then she's she goes into this diner, it's called the Half Moon, and she's flashing a bunch of money, like all this cash that she has,
00:26:12
Speaker
She is calling on the phone asking people about her dad. Oh, first she goes to like the halfway house that her dad was staying at. That was the first place she went. And like the lady there doesn't have any information. She has some pictures that her dad left and that's it. Then she goes to Half Moon. Then we meet Chance Boudreau who is sitting at the bar or at the counter eating a bowl of gumbo. And The server asks him how's the gumbo and he is tragic Is it the gumbo is a tragedy? And with the coffee is is acceptable Except for it. He's not doing Believe it or not. We are doing a better New Orleans accent The ideas because he just fully sounds Belgium. I think the idea here was that I
00:27:11
Speaker
Van Damme's Belgian accent would pass as a Cajun accent, which it does not. Which it does not. Even though they're both French speakers, technically, doesn't work. But he says that Gumbo was a tragedy because he's trying to get out of paying for it. And the the server's even like, you did that before, you already did that before to get out of paying. You're not going to get out of paying this time. So he slides over like,
00:27:40
Speaker
I don't know, $1.50 in change to pay for his gumbo. Yancy Butler leaves the diner, goes outside to her camaro blue Camaro convertible with Michigan plates. that The top is never up on this convertible even once. You were very concerned about that. so You can't leave the top down. You can't.
00:28:10
Speaker
Anyway, she like gets in the car and she's attacked by these muggers and then Van Dam in his like coat, in his a black coat. His like corduroys. He's wearing corduroys. We got a close up of them corduroys.
00:28:28
Speaker
But yeah, like he's wearing, like it's, it's, it's kind of a bathrobe, right? Cause it's not like it's, it's basically like just a long shirt. It's an overcoat. I think it's an overcoat.
00:28:43
Speaker
it it okay It does look a little weird with his full outfit, ah but it's a look. It's definitely a look it's a look. I mean, look, I'm not saying it's not a look because as I mentioned as we were watching this, JCVD is like peak male fashion in this. Oh, for sure. So he whips all these guys' asses. There's a great bit where he, this one guy tries to like hit him with a beer bottle and he just grabs the beer bottle from the guy and smashes it over his head and then he kicks the guy and the guy um goes like flopping down into a, it looks like a horse hitch. Yeah, it's it's a hitch and post. It's a metal hitch and post. That's one of the, that's one of the harshest looking bumps we see in this movie. It's great.
00:29:39
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, he just, he whips all these guys' asses and then she's like, Hey, thanks. And he's like, don't Mitch on it. And, uh, he walks off at every shot. it I observed here that like a full half of the shots of him from the moment we're introduced to him is in slow motion.
00:30:00
Speaker
It's, there's so much slow motion in this movie. And again, it is 96 minutes long. Yeah. And I genuinely feel like you can chop 10 minutes out of that of unnecessary slow motion. It, it very much feels like the Garth Waringi's Dark Place thing of every scene without dialogue was considered for slow motion. Fully, fully feels like that. Uh, so,
00:30:29
Speaker
Yet see Butler that then she goes to the cops she files the report this detectives like it's going to take a long time to do anything. And ah then we see chance who used to be.
00:30:44
Speaker
in the Marines. He was like a Silver Star winner in the Marines. or he won a so star he was He was a Marine Force recon. Yes. ah Winner is probably the wrong term. He was awarded the Silver Star. Recipient is usually what people say there. Yeah. ah But he he is now a merchant marine. And so he's at the docks waiting to be selected to go on this merchant marine expedition.
00:31:15
Speaker
in the reading out names and eventually they do read out his name and just then. Natal or Natasha is showing up and asking him if he will help her find her dad and he's like, I can't do it. I have to, I'm going to be out of town. I'm going on this job. So he goes up when his name is called and.
00:31:40
Speaker
Turns out that he hasn't paid his union dues. He got reinstated into the Merchant Marines, into the company, but he hasn't paid his union dues. So he can't go on this expedition. And he's like, well, let me go on the boat and then I'll pay you from what I make. and and And the guy's like, you know the rules. You can't go if you're not, if you're in arrears. So get your $217, pay your dues.
00:32:07
Speaker
and then we'll we'll work on it. So then he tells Natasha, I'll help you find your dad in two days if you pay me $217. And she goes, okay. And they drive off together. Then we get some background on what ah Lance Henriksen is doing.
The Hunt's Brutal Reality and Rising Stakes
00:32:32
Speaker
but Well, ah first there's a scene where it's like, We find out about this guy who's having people like hand out flyers around town, like sex work flyers. That's like phone s sex flyers. Yeah. And he's, his operation is a front, like he's hiring unhoused people to ostensibly hand out these flyers, but this is also a way to find people for Lance Henriksen's group to hunt.
00:33:04
Speaker
And Chance Madrew actually goes to him first to find out like what's going on. Cause I think they find some, some of these flyers in her dad's stuff, right? They find a suitcase of his that this other veteran had. So they go talk to him and he's like, I don't know anything. And then almost immediately.
00:33:28
Speaker
Lance Henriksen shows up, him and Arnold Vaslu show up at this guy's place and they cut off his earlobe because the guy that they recently killed, Douglas Bender, his daughter is now in town asking around about him. Yeah, and and he was not the guy they picked. No, and and now you've you've created a problem for us.
00:33:55
Speaker
and and you're going to pay for it, Randall. You're going to get it. And Randall is such a guy in this kind of movie kind of guy. he's Yes. He's great. Honestly. Yeah. There's a bit after he gets his ear cut off where he picks up the phone, like they call him again and he picks up the phone and holds it up to to the ear that got cut off. And it's like,
00:34:22
Speaker
It's very funny. it's a great yeah He maximizes his minutes. He really does. There's a few things that happen here, like plot things that I'm just going to get through really quickly. Natasha finds out that her dad is dead. like ah the One of the cops finds her and tells her that her dad has been found dead. He's been found in a burned building where they had to identify him by dental records.
00:34:51
Speaker
and they won't let her see the body because they're like, he was burned too bad. And so like, that's kind of how like the first act of this movie ends. Like the thing that the protagonist of the movie ostensibly, or the the character who wants something, which is to find her dad, learns 25 minutes into the movie that he's dead.
00:35:15
Speaker
yes So they find out that he's dead. Chance goes to investigate this the site where of the burned building and he finds her dad's dog tags that he was wearing and sees that it's, he couldn't have been killed by being burned alive because he sees where so it's been shot through. The dog tags have been shot through with, I think, Van Dam said something like something hard and metal.
00:35:47
Speaker
so So they go to the cop and say like, Oh, we got to investigate this. Well, actually Van Damme, when he goes to investigate the building, he gets beaten up by two of Lance Henriksen's guys. And then he gets arrested and brought to the cops. And that's when he says like, he didn't die by being burned. Also, we see Lance Henriksen explain his business to a new client.
00:36:15
Speaker
Uh, what's this guy's name? It's like, I want to say Zarbon, but that's one of Frieza's lieutenants. But it's it's like, it's Zoran, I think. It's Zanon. It's Zanon. Uh, this guy, Mr. Zanon wants to hunt somebody and we learn that they don't just operate in New Orleans. They operate in different places around the world that are having problems.
00:36:44
Speaker
So they've been in Yugoslavia and what else does he list off as other places that they've been? They went to Rio during Carnival? Oh, that's right. Other places that are also just like busy with other things. They they go in and do this there too. I guess ostensibly they're in New Orleans because of the police strike. I guess? Because It's not it's not ah ah Mardi Gras. They're still getting ready for mar Mardi Gras in February because it's Christmas. Correct. Anyway, he explains that like they go to these places that are unstable so they can do these hunts without like you know needless intervention.
00:37:40
Speaker
and And and they they always try to be extremely discreet. And they they find people that have no families and no connections. And it's always, you know, always, they they keep everything well under wraps. And then this agrees this guy agrees like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. And he chooses the veteran that we saw Nat talk to a few times earlier in the movie.
00:38:10
Speaker
who's this guy named Elijah. So the hunt, this guy, Mr. Xenon starts to hunt Elijah. Well, first they ask Elijah if he'll do it. And they give him this belt full of $10,000 and say, if he makes it to the river, he gets to keep that money. Here's my question about that. Would they honor that?
00:38:36
Speaker
I, I've been thinking about that. I mean, they are concerned about it at the start of the thing. Yeah. And I feel like I, I am not organizing any ah hunts for human beings, but if I was organizing some kind of game, I would want there to be a loose condition because otherwise you're just, you know, like not fun, right?
00:39:06
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. It's... It's weird that there would be a loose condition, though, considering that they don't ever want any loose ends ever, and if one of you- Right, considering that they're gonna, like, that they're killing people. Yeah.
00:39:26
Speaker
And like, I think they are more likely to, like, just tell the rich guy, Oh, you failed and then go kill the dude themselves because we do see them kind of do that. Yeah, I think that's probably what would happen. But this hunt starts, it's they're chasing this guy Elijah all through the great the a graveyard because you know, they're in New Orleans, so they got it, there's got to be a graveyard. And At first, like this guy is a non seems like he doesn't know what he's doing. He's got, they give him this huge gun, this huge, like automatic rifle to shoot him with. And at first he's like, they're just going to shoot him immediately. And they're like, no, no, no, we got to make this sporting. So they give Elijah a headstart and Elijah is just like randomly running all through this graveyard. Finally.
00:40:20
Speaker
Xenon like kind of shoots him like gets him in the leg, I think. And he, and Lance Hendricks is like, finish him, finish him, you got to finish him. You want me to let you want me to look bad in front of my dogs. He says that he says that and we had we had a lot of discussion about that we did. Because I could not figure out if if he meant dogs literally. He walks up, xenon walks up to Elijah and is about to shoot him and Elijah just like takes the gun from him, stands up and then shoots xenon a bunch of times. And Lance Henriksen's like, you fucking idiot. I can't believe you allowed that to happen. So he takes the gun and they follow Elijah.
00:41:15
Speaker
Like, because they got to take down Elijah now, right? Yeah, they do they do finish off the rich guy. And then Lance Hendrickson is just fully leaving evidence everywhere. Yeah, this is not what they said they do, which is tie up any loose ends. Correct. Elijah goes out onto Bourbon Street and is like asking people for help telling them like, Oh, I've got like,
00:41:46
Speaker
You know, they're they're coming after me, they're going to kill me. And everybody on Bourbon Street is like, leave me alone. I don't have any change. One of them is Ted Ramey. One of them is big Ted. Who goes, I told you, I don't have any change.
00:42:03
Speaker
So like, this is, this is obviously a statement about, you know, being unhoused in America. ah but and ah And also about Ted Ramey. And also about Ted Ramey. Yeah. And Eventually, like Lance Hendrickson and all of his dogs just roll up onto Bourbon Street. All his dogs? All his dogs. They roll up onto Bourbon Street and just shoot Elijah in the middle of Bourbon Street with a bunch of people standing around. And I think they shoot other people too. Yeah, I mean, they're not subtle or at all concerned about it. No.
00:42:45
Speaker
So maybe they're not like, maybe if you get to the river, yeah, you're fine. Maybe they just, they do this in front of so many witnesses.
Climactic Battle and Explosive Climax
00:42:57
Speaker
Very many. So many witnesses. It is outrageous.
00:43:07
Speaker
Uh, so
00:43:11
Speaker
The investigation starts into who actually killed, uh, not only now Douglas Bender, but also Elijah. Oh, and also Randall, like they're going to tie up another loose end with Randall. Cause we hear, um,
00:43:32
Speaker
Uh, Lance Henriksen say, this is the last hunt we're ever going to do in New Orleans. Everything's been ruined for us here. So this, we're not doing any more hunts in New Orleans. So Arnold Voslew goes up to Randall's car, the guy with the flyer, the flyers, and sees that he's going to skip town. He's like, Oh, uh, my mom's sick and Biloxi.
00:43:54
Speaker
And our boss was like, Oh, Randall, Randall. And he shoots Randall with a shotgun right there in his car, leaving even more evidence right in the middle of the street. Broad daylight, broad daylight, right? Like almost immediately. Natasha chance and detective Mitchell see Randall's car where he's been shot. And then they are ambushed by Lance Hendrickson's guys. And there's a big shootout.
00:44:24
Speaker
And, uh, this ends with detective Mitchell getting shot like six times. Uh, Chance Boudreaux manages to like, you know, fight off a bunch of the guys. I think he kicks some dudes off of motorcycles and it rules. Like all of the action in that portion is great. But then like Natasha wants to stay with detective Mitchell ah and chances like She's dead. Leave her.
00:44:58
Speaker
And, uh, and Natasha does, and they get on a motorcycle together. And then there's a big chase, like under an overpass and along some roadways. And eventually it ends on the overpass, but there's ah like a road closed, like ah a roadblock. So chance can't keep going. So he stops and turns around. He,
00:45:22
Speaker
does a wheelie on his motorcycle to knock Natasha off the back just gently. So she lands on her feet and he sees that the gas tank of his motorcycle has been shot and there's gas pouring out. We get a very nice sound effect there too. Yes. The sound effect of the gas pouring out continues through other shots, which I do like. That's some good sound design.
00:45:50
Speaker
He rides the motorcycle up to like the convoy of bad guys jumps off, head the motorcycle slides towards them, he shoots it with the gas pouring out and it explodes and makes all the bad guys explode. And it's great. It's it's honestly like a super great stunt. It's awesome. Yeah. So then obviously Arnold Vaslu and Lance Hendrickson are now fully out to get ah Chance Boudreau. They're like, we can't leave town until we get rid of Chance Boudreau. He knows but too much about what we've done. So they they start chasing after him and Natasha. And so they have to go into the woods. They have to go into the bayou. And Chance is like, I'm going to take you to Uncle Duvet's place.
00:46:48
Speaker
We go go to Uncle Duvet's. Yep. They go to Uncle Duvet's. But before they get to Uncle Duvet's... Because it is established previously that Chance Boudreau, Jean-Claude Van Damme, is American. He's from... He is from America. He's from Louisiana. Yeah. And he was raised in the bayou by Uncle Duvet. Yes. Yes.
00:47:17
Speaker
And this is where the real star of the film shows up. So, but before that happens, Chance and Natasha are in the woods, and Chance, like, holds up a hand, and all of a sudden there's a rattlesnake up behind Natasha. But first she asks him, like, shouldn't we be on the lookout for gators? And he says,
00:47:45
Speaker
If you want it to be, yeah. Which I do not understand at all as a dialogue exchange. There's so much to not understand in what is said in this film. But there's a snake behind her rattlesnake. He grabs the rattlesnake. He whacks it on the head first. He kind of just like, like bops it. Like it's, like it's bad. Yeah. He like bops it on the head. Like it did a bad thing.
00:48:15
Speaker
And then in, you know, the most iconic shot of the whole movie, he punches the rattlesnake. He punches the snake in the face. Yes. And Yancy Butler goes, is it dead? And he's like, no. And then he bites the rattle off. Yes. And he's like, I'm going to leave a surprise. Yes. So he bites the rattle off so as to not, so as the snake won't make noise.
00:48:44
Speaker
to alert the other, the the people looking for them. So he leaves a snake trap in a tree and it like bikes one of the guys, one of Lance Hendrickson's guys in the face. Straight in the face. And Lance Hendrickson like gets furious at that guy and has to kill him. Cause he got bit by a rattlesnake with its rattle bitten off.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah, he fully... Like, I don't... I'm not a snake doctor. I'm not a... Is that is that herpetology or is are snakes different from lizards? Let's see. Let's see what the study of snakes is called. I'm not a member of cobra.
00:49:34
Speaker
Ophiology is the specifically the study of snakes, but it is a branch of herpetology. Okay. ah Anyway, I'm not one of those dudes. He just like bites down on the rattle and like pops it right off the snake. And I'm not, shoot like that is, that's of everything that happens in this movie. That's the one that I looked at and I was like, I don't think that's how that goes. Can you just like pop it off?
00:50:05
Speaker
I have no answer for you. I i can shed no light on this. I have never ah been close enough to a rattlesnake to know. Just two guys who aren't snake doctors. No, two guys who grew up in the South around where lettles rattlesnakes live, but who have never, thankfully, never encountered a rattlesnake to and yeah enough to know. So they make it to Uncle Duvet's place. Uncle Duvet is Wilford Brimley, the real star of this movie. he's We see him, we meet him,
00:50:40
Speaker
making liquor at a still, because of course that's what he's doing. he's got his he's He's making shine. He's making some shine, which I do not think is a New Orleans thing, really. but be Well, I mean, it's ah i mean it's it's a weird dudes who live in wilderness thing, I guess. so Sure. I always think of it more as like a Tennessee kind of thing, but I would as well. I can buy it. I can buy it. It's fine.
00:51:09
Speaker
So he's making it shine, he drinks it, and you, before he got the line out, you went, woo wee. Like, it would be funny for him to say that, right? I, I called my shop. Then Wilford Brubley goes, woo wee. Woo wee. And then we hear him talk. And he has probably the only actual Cajun accent in the movie. Not actual Cajun accent, but Cajun accent. And certainly the most fun Cajun accent in the movie. it it's The Gambit accent that you and I like to do? Yeah. That is the accent that he has. Yeah, when when Chance shows up, he goes, Shaunts! Shaunts! It is so good to see you! Yeah.
00:52:02
Speaker
but When he takes the sip of the shine, he's like, whoo, wee. That's the first time I ever shocked myself. Yeah, and also he ah he speaks in French. He and Van Dam speak to each other in French at one point. Now, again, I took French in high school, but I never did very well at it. I am not a French speaker by any means.
00:52:29
Speaker
I can tell one of those people is speaking better French than the other.
00:52:35
Speaker
ah But it's great. It's so good. And what we also learned about Uncle, or yeah, Uncle Duvet is that he's like, he is also ex-military and a merc. Yeah. And he's got like, all kinds of like,
00:52:55
Speaker
artillery in his like shack in the woods in the bayou. It's a real ah Christopher Lloyd in nobody situation.
00:53:07
Speaker
Lance Henriksen and his guys show up in their Jeep Cherokees. And Uncle Duvet is like on a horse shooting at his own still blowing that up, then blowing up his own house.
00:53:24
Speaker
with like a bundle of dynamite. Yes, to get rid of these guys. He's like, let's go ignite. Yes, absolutely. And he's like riding around on the horse, lighting stuff on fire, you know, yelling out war slogans and stuff. He's amazing. He's great. No, he honestly steals the show. Yes. And it's amazing to think that he did it all at the age of 22. I know. ah Did you know that that, uh, Wilford Brimley was 22 when he made this movie. Yeah, that's incredible. So. Only 16 years of age. Arnold Voslew is like, look, this is too much trouble. We're doing too much here. Just let me take out chance. Let me take out Boudreaux from the air.
00:54:17
Speaker
And Lance Henriksen's like, I don't know. I don't think it's going to work. And Arnold Voss is like, just let me take him down from the air. So cut immediately to Arnold Voss who's in a helicopter oh and Chance Boudreau is still running away on a horse. Like he tells Chance Boudreau tells uncle Duvet and Natasha, like go get help.
00:54:47
Speaker
I'm going to like try to lead them away. So he gets on a horse and starts ah running toward this like old warehouse, this old industrial area. And none of us lose chasing him in the helicopter. They can't shoot him from the helicopter for some reason. So they end up just landing anyway. When they get to this warehouse, when they get to this industrial plant. Yeah, but they don't have to deal with any more snake traps, which I think is the important thing. Sure.
00:55:17
Speaker
So then, as soon as they go into this warehouse, it's this big building full of old Mardi Gras floats. Like, I don't know if they're Mardi Gras floats under construction or like their old Mardi Gras floats that have been put away. It's hard to say because because of the everything of this movie. yeah But they do, like like, more than anything, they look like when the penguin had his big ducks. Yes, very much so. And also, this place is just full of birds. In fact, the movie up to this point has been full of birds. Yeah, man, it's a John Woo movie. It's the classic John Woo put birds everywhere.
00:56:11
Speaker
approach, like have dubs in shots all the time, have Chance Boudreaux see a bird in his apartment and go, yeah. Back when I was living in South Carolina, I worked at the comic store in the mid 2000s. There was a guy that I knew who did have the, the one of the thickest Southern accents that I've ever heard. ah But like, it was like this accent. Like,
00:56:41
Speaker
if you were doing a parody of somebody from Columbia, right but he loved action movies. And i I believe I heard from a friend about this, but like they went to go see, I think it was Mission Impossible 2. And he just like, when the doves fly by, he just leans over in theater and goes, John Woo.
00:57:06
Speaker
And that's what I think about every time. John Woo. That's, that's his, that's his Akira. Yes, it's exactly that. No. And, but it's not just doves in this movie. It's also pigeons. Well, pigeons are doves, Matt. You're blowing my mind here, bud. Yeah. did I mean, did you like, seriously, did you not know that pigeons are doves? I did not know the pigeons were doves. Yeah. The same bird.
00:57:38
Speaker
We just call the white ones doves and the the ones that nobody likes pigeons. That's a weird fact. I will look further into this. That's wild. Yeah, man. I had no idea. I never knew this. This is a fact you've just taught me. Because I always thought pigeons sucked and doves were good. That's what a lot of, like, that's all marketing. Dove marketing. I knew it. Big dove.
00:58:07
Speaker
it's all big dove it's all big dove so anyway there's a shot of van dam like up in the the upper areas of this building with like a pigeon on his shoulder at one point and then A pigeon, there's like one of the one of the mercenary guys is in here and he's walking along and a pigeon up in the rafters like so like start shitting on this guy's head. And he looks up and he starts shooting up into the scaffolding to shoot the pigeon. And like feathers are like falling down on him. And the camera pans back down to Van Dam.
00:58:53
Speaker
And he's got like a canister of propane or something. And he just kicks it at the guy. And then he shoots it and explodes. But just before that, he goes, hey, pigeon. Hey, pigeon. And then he shoots it and it explodes. And the guy blows up. And it is the biggest explosion in the entire movie. It's huge. To a truly hilarious extreme. It's great, though. It's fucking great. It's fantastic. Yeah.
00:59:23
Speaker
Um, there's also like more like there's Boudreaux, Chance Boudreaux running away from being shot at. He's like taking down guys one by one, like sneaking up behind him, taking him down. Uncle Duvet and Natasha don't manage to get any help. So they just go to the warehouse and decide to help Chance take down these guys. Uncle Duvet's got a bow and arrow, and he's just shooting guys with the bow and arrow. And it whips ass. Yeah, Wilfer Brimley fucking riding around on a horse just fully murking dudes with a bow and arrow. like I said like what they didn't know is that Wilfer Brimley survived the Hunger Games. Natasha, meanwhile,
01:00:19
Speaker
Like, she has a gun, but she isn't quite doing anything yet, even though, like, she and Wilford Brimley at one point agree, we're gonna kill these guys. When she finally- Yeah, Nancy Miller's like, what now? And he's like, we put an arrow in everybody that's not Chance. Yeah. And I'm like, damn, all right! And she's like, fuck yeah, let's do it. Yeah, I mean, she's down. But when she shoots a guy, which she does directly in the dick,
01:00:49
Speaker
Uncle Duvet is like, no, no, no, no, no, you you can't be doing that. You shouldn't be part of this. You couldn't really figure that particular element of the story out. Yeah, what is it what is it that he objects to? I wonder. And for like a while we thought it was that she fully just shot a man in the dick, ah but there is so much dick violence in this movie. Yes. Yes. So... Like, it it like this is the turning point where it's like,
01:01:20
Speaker
It's open season on dicks. Absolutely. And because Van Dam shoots a guy in the dick almost immediately after that. And then there's a very cool showdown with him and Arnold Baslu, where they're on opposite sides of a wall with their backs to the wall. And there's the shot. The walls in the center of the shot. Yeah. it is And they're reloading. It's rad. It's such a rad John Boo shot.
01:01:49
Speaker
It's a really good shot. And we we didn't mention it earlier, but kind of like Arnold Vosloo's sort of running character bit in this is that he's always telling people like, oh, you didn't mean to hurt my feelings. Yeah, that's I kind of landed on Transylvania, but that's not his South African accent. But he is kind of what he sounds like. He's speaking at his native South African accent throughout this movie. Yeah. But then there's another part of the movie where Lance Hendrickson asks him, hey, did I make you mad? And Arnold Vossen goes, no one could make me mad. I am a professional. Yeah. So he's, ah he talks a lot about his feelings. Yeah. And it's kind of like his running bit. But like this, like this part, he's like, Oh, you're you're hurting my feelings. And there is like, so so much more sexual tension between those two.
01:02:48
Speaker
then there is, like... Like, Yancy Butler isn't even a sexy lamp, you know? Right. Yancy Butler's barely in this movie. And she's in most of the shots. I feel like we're supposed to think that Van Damme and Yancy Butler have some kind of sexual tension going on, but it is essentially non-existent. Yeah, I mean, like, there's nothing to really... Like, this certainly isn't, like...
01:03:19
Speaker
There's no real romance connection in the way that there often is in an action movie. But there's also like, I feel like there's maybe 15 minutes of that that got cut out or just not filmed because it's boring and we don't need it. Yeah, but like we needed more shots in slow motion. So cut the romance subplot. It's definitely like, it's definitely like, oh, this is what you're here for because this is the way these kinds of movies work.
01:03:50
Speaker
but it's never actually done. i i I honestly kind of wonder if they did like test screenings or or like showed it to the universal executives and maybe there was a romantic subplot. And it was just so beyond obvious that there was just no spark, no chemistry between Van Dam and Yancey Butler at all, that they were like, just cut that, just cut that whole thing.
01:04:21
Speaker
How long do you think this movie was before somebody saw it and gave them a list of what to cut? I think it was the exact same length, but they cut that whole part and then patted it back out to the length with all the slow motion. We gotta get it as close to 90 minutes as we can, otherwise they are not gonna run it.
01:04:41
Speaker
Slow motion everywhere. We talked earlier about how a lot of this movie feels like like TV. Yeah. And I do feel like part of that is that it is the exact length of a Hallmark Christmas special. Yes, it is the exact length of a of a TV movie in many regards. Yes. Hour 26. That's commercial breaks go here. Yeah. So Van Dam shoots Arnold Vaslu.
01:05:14
Speaker
Uh, he gets his little gun fight. Yeah, yeah but he gets, he gets his little send off and then Lance Hendrickson comes back in and, uh, sets the interior of the building on fire and has his little, like, he's got this, like, you know, in Batman 89, Jack Nicholson joker has that big handgun as a gag.
01:05:43
Speaker
Yes. That's like Lance Henriksen's gun in this movie, but for real. Yeah, he has a breech-loading single-shot elephant gun. Like, we see him... It's not a shotgun. We see him put a bullet in at one point and we get like a close-up. And it's like ah like it's like a giant cartridge, but it's not a shell.
01:06:06
Speaker
it's It's like a fucking elephant gun that he has sought off for for ah home use. Yes. he's so he stabs First, he stabs Uncle Duvet in the chest with an arrow. Uncle Duvet? And Van Dam has to like go hide behind the flames. Lance Henriksen comes up and says, give me your best shot. Go ahead. Give me your best shot.
01:06:31
Speaker
So Van Damme comes jumping out, shoots him with a shotgun, but only gets him like with a glancing hit across the face. So he's got these like, you know, bullet wounds across his face for the rest of the movie. And he grabs Natasha by the hair is like holding her hostage. And he's like, you picked the wrong tool, Boudreaux.
01:06:57
Speaker
Because Natasha's like, go ahead and shoot him. And Lance Hendrickson's like, if you shoot me, you're going to shoot her too. What are you going to do? What are you going to do about it?
01:07:11
Speaker
Van Dam just like starts charging at him? Yeah, he he decides not to shoot, just to run full force. But Also, Lance Henriksen doesn't kill Yancy Butler. No, he just like lets Yancy Butler go. Uh-huh. And they fight for a while. ah well First Van Dam puts down the shotgun. He puts down the shotgun and ejects all of the all of the shells. But he has a grenade hidden behind his back. So he starts charging at Lance Henriksen.
01:07:52
Speaker
He lets Yancey Butler go, they fight for a little while, and then Van Dam just sticks the grenade right down Lance Hendrickson's pants. He grabs the belt, pulls the pants open, and drops the grenade down there like it's a fucking Three Stooges bit. Absolutely correct. Lance Hendrickson reaches down in his pants, fishes out the grenade, and like, starts trying to take it apart to disarm it.
01:08:21
Speaker
but Even though it's already armed. He's like, trying to take the top off. He gets it taken apart. And then... The most Looney Tunes shit, because the part he pulls out is labeled Fuse. Fuse. It is written on it. He still kind of hand holds it close together, so it still sparks. And he goes, uh-oh. And then he explodes. Yes, literally, uh-oh. Boom.
01:08:51
Speaker
fan-fucking-tastic. What's great about this is as soon as Lance Henryson explodes, we get a quick shot of ah Van Dam and Yancey Butler going over to Wilford Brimley, who reveals that he is not dead because they stabbed him through his flask that he had in his pocket. Then the credits roll immediately. Immediate credits.
01:09:20
Speaker
immediate credits. It's fantastic. Under, under born on the bayou. Underborn on the bayou.
Final Thoughts on Action and Performances
01:09:29
Speaker
All right, Chris, what do we have as the high points of hard target? Matt, I like a movie that respects my time. Yeah, the length is right on the money. I mean, it's like,
01:09:47
Speaker
It's got some genuinely great action in it. like It's not all, like it's it's certainly not John Woo's best work directorially in that there are plenty of, like I mentioned as we were watching it, I was like, I feel like the slow motion is kind of actively detracting from how cool a lot of this action is. oh In some cases it does, and in some cases I feel like it it adds, but yeah. Yeah.
01:10:15
Speaker
But, like, a lot of the action is, like, really fantastic. I mean, you know, it's a fucking John Woo movie. Like, it's... There's a lot of, like, really cool fight stuff.
01:10:25
Speaker
There is a recurring bit where um in the climactic fight in the warehouse, Van Dam will shoot a dude seven times and then finish him off by jump kicking him in the face. Yeah. one Which is great. the guy watch The guy who has the gun that shoots the arrows, he kicks that guy's sunglasses off. And we were both like,
01:10:49
Speaker
That looked like it really hurt for real. Yeah, that one looked like it made a lot of contact. It's not like debilitating, but is extremely painful.
01:11:01
Speaker
ah Yeah, the action is really good. Like, I can set aside so many of the low points we will talk about it in a minute, because this movie is just fun to watch during the action sequences.
01:11:19
Speaker
I also think both Lance Hendrickson and Arnold Boslue, like we talked about the acting being bad, and I'm not saying Lance Hendrickson and Arnold Boslue were good, but those are two guys who knew exactly what kind of movie they were in. Oh yeah. ah yeah Arnold Boslue is having a delightful time chewing scenery in a way that's genuinely really enjoyable. And they both seem to be having fun. and Like by the end where Lance Henriksen is just like screaming and yelling at his idiot underlings to like do something right, I was having a ball watching his performance. Yeah, and I mean like to kind of combine both those points, there's a shot in this movie where Lance Henriksen's on fire. Absolutely, yes. Like in the in the the sequence at the end,
01:12:14
Speaker
He is on fire and there was no way to fake that. Yeah, no, it is. It is. His full face is on camera as he is kind of trying to get out of this jacket that is on fire. Like you can see, you see in a lot of action movies where they do fake it, where it's like supposed to be the main bad guy on fire, but you only see him from behind or it's like a really wide shot to see that it, so you don't see that it's a stunt man.
01:12:41
Speaker
This was very clearly Lance Hendrickson's face while he was wearing a jacket that was on fire. In slow motion, so there is no mistaking it. Yeah, it's it's fantastic. It's so good. ah Yeah, the the the bad guys in this movie are kind of a hoot. And you know Sam Raimi was there being like, are you sure you don't want it to be Ted? ah Are you sure you don't want to set my brother on fire? Ted will do it. You can. Hey, hey, you can set him on fire. I don't care.
01:13:11
Speaker
um I would actually be happier if you did. What do we have for low points of? the A lot of this movie is bad. The script. No, no, everything. A lot of every element of the movie is bad.
01:13:30
Speaker
but The thing that is bad in a way that is kind of not enjoyable, the soundtrack sucks. The soundtrack is so bad. The soundtrack is especially bad. I think it gets better later in the movie, but in the early parts of the movie, it really just sounds like tracks that were grabbed from a royalty-free music library.
01:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. it's It's very, like, that does not help the feeling that it is extremely TV either. No. Like, particularly all the scene-setting Naland's music? Oh, yeah. Like, the Zydeco music and and those bits, they really do sound chintzy and cheap and bad. Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:26
Speaker
it's it's the The soundtrack is but like, we looked up who did the soundtrack to, to be like, like, who did this? Who is anyone credited for this? It's Graham Revel, who also did the music for Street Fighter, among many other movies. Yeah, like it's a known guy just like very clearly phoning it in. Yeah, it's, it's weird. The music is bad. This, the dialogue,
01:14:57
Speaker
is really bad. Like, the dialogue is just rough, rough stuff from Jump Street. And like, mostly just non sequiturs. Like, yeah, you you just don't understand why people are saying what they're saying. There's a couple of like really funny bits and like kind of good lines. But for the most part, you could watch this movie on mute and miss nothing.
01:15:29
Speaker
ah Except for the sound effects, which I think are good. The sound effects are good. The sound design is good, but like the music and the dialogue both bad. um The only stuff that's really good is like when the act it's when it seems like the actors are kind of like having fun and and making the most of it, you know but like largely, yeah, the dialogue is is pretty rough.
01:15:58
Speaker
Alright Chris, what do we have for final thoughts on Hard Target? Again, it's it's one of the worst movies that still actually rules that I've ever seen. Like, highly enjoyable. And I mean, Matt, you know me, I am not someone who believes in, like, guilty pleasures, by and large. If something's enjoyable, I tend to think of it as good.
01:16:23
Speaker
uh, you know, regardless of its problems. This is one where I'm like, no, it's bad. It's an action, like, but it's, it also rules. Yeah. It's hard. It's, it's very hard to get your header out. It's not so bad. It's good. It's bad. And also rules. Chris, did you know that but John Woo wanted a different actor to play Chance Boudreau?
01:16:52
Speaker
Uh, I did not. Would you like to guess as to who that actor was? 1990? 1993. 1993?
01:17:06
Speaker
Surely couldn't get away with Schwarzenegger. It was not Schwarzenegger. No, it was not Schwarzenegger. Young, like younger guy or established guy? Established guy. for sure No, here's your clue. Okay.
01:17:24
Speaker
Oh, another high point that we didn't mention is Jean-Claude Van Damme's hair. Oh, yeah, beautiful. Oh, and, and Wilfred Brimley. Entirely. Entirely. Imagine an actor who has a version of Van Damme's hair in other movies. Was it going to be Billy Ray Cyrus? No. Oh, okay.
01:17:49
Speaker
But but you that would have been great you're in the neighborhood of like, it's it is that kind of hairstyle. Okay. ah ah i Matt, i got you gotta tell me. ah Kurt Russell. Way too good for this movie. i just want I just wonder what this movie would have been with Kurt Russell. it I feel like it would have been worse.
01:18:14
Speaker
You think so? I think so. and like i I like Kurt Russell, but like that is... you can't You can't go to McDonald's and and like also have a side of filet mignon. That would be weird. It would ruin the meal. The thing for me is, I think the action absolutely would have been worse, or like you know it wouldn't have been the Van Damme-style action that this movie has.
01:18:44
Speaker
But I wonder if, you know, like Kurt Russell can have chemistry with a broomstick. Yeah. So I think the movie would have been very, very different because as we said, there's probably a romantic subplot that got cut. Yeah. Like, I mean, if, if the only way that would work is if it is somehow big trouble in little China too.
01:19:12
Speaker
I do also think it's interesting that this is a movie, this is like a 1993 action movie, where the whole plot is based around this wild notion of veterans being hunted for sport. I mean, that that happens a lot in films. Well, I feel like at this period, at this point in time, every movie like this was about drugs. Yeah.
01:19:40
Speaker
Like it was about a good guy fighting dudes who were trying to do something with drugs. So I do have to give it to this movie for doing something different and at least ostensibly trying to have some kind of message about unhoused veterans. It's totally lost, but it's clear that it's trying to do something about that. You know? Yeah. It's, I, I feel like it's not so much a message as it's like,
01:20:10
Speaker
here's Here's a thing that exists. Well, there's ah there's a line that Van Damme has near the end of the movie. Honestly, great line. Where, yeah, it's one of the better lines in the movie. Where like, I think Lance Henriksen asks him something to the effect of, why do you care so much? Why did you get involved in this? And Van Damme goes, sometimes poor people get bored too. And like,
01:20:40
Speaker
it Maybe that doesn't quite raise to the level of a message, but clearly this movie is trying to say something about class in America that I find fascinating. Yeah. the The whole thing of like, why did you fuck with my business? Like, why did you get involved with my business where I get bored, rich people to hunt people for sport? And the response being, poor people get bored too. That's fucking funny.
01:21:11
Speaker
It's like the delivery is, you know, is Jean-Claude Van Damme as directed but just by ah John Woo and a ah Sam Raimi doing the crossword on the sidelines. But ah but yeah, it's like, I just don't think it's actually trying to say anything. I think it is trying to say anything and just not succeeding. Also probable. Yeah.
What If Kurt Russell Was the Lead?
01:21:39
Speaker
But either way, ah a fun movie that is in fact a Christmas movie because there is a scene where Van Damme goes to see that that ah weird lackey guy whose name is... What is his name? Randall? Randall. Who goes to see Randall like at a massage parlor?
01:22:07
Speaker
And like Randall's getting a massage and then Chance Boudreaux waves the massage, ah the masseuse off and like grabs his neck with his own hand and then interrogates him on the massage table. And behind him, there's a Christmas tree. There sure is. No getting around it. It's a Christmas movie. It's a Christmas movie. And I enjoyed the gift of watching Hard Target with you, Matt Wilson. Absolutely, yes.
Episode Conclusion and Holiday Wishes
01:22:37
Speaker
We will be back with another movie in February. We'll bring back snack situation in January, so come come back and listen to that. Marlene and I will try a snack in January on the show. But we'll figure out something to watch in February, and it's going to be fun.
01:22:58
Speaker
In the meantime, ah if you want to support this show or any of the other shows we do, War Rocket Ajax and the associated shows with it, ah go to patreon dot.com slash War Rocket Ajax and kick in ah whatever you can to help us out. We would really appreciate it.
01:23:14
Speaker
If you want to email us a movie suggestion, you can do that at moviefighterscastatgmail.com. You can also get in touch with us on Tumblr at moviefighterscast dot.tumblr dot.com. If you want to find me and my stuff, go to MattDWilson.net to find links to my comics, my books, my other podcasts, and my social medias. Chris, where can people find you? Everybody can find me by going to the-isb.com. That is my website. It's got links to all the stuff that I do. Bye, everybody. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas.
01:23:44
Speaker
Don't hunt what you can't kill. Happy New Year. Happy Hanukkah. Whatever you celebrate, we hope it's happy for you. Bye, everybody. Bye. Keep fighting. Keep on fighting.