Lionheart - Scommessa vincente

I know this movie as "A.W.O.L Absent Without Leave" but I have also seen it called Wrong Bet and Lionheart. This was one of the first movies I saw in 1990 knowing who Jean Claude Van Damme was, after previously seeing "Blood Sport" and "Kickboxer". Along with those two this helped set him on the road to stardom. Watching it today, I still think it is one of his best performances and best movies in general. Sure it's cheaply made and some of the acting is a bit dodgy but it's a lot of fun.

Plot In A Paragraph: Leon Gaultier is a deserter from the Foreign Legion arriving in New York . He finds his brother at death's door in L.A and his sister-in-law without the money needed to pay for medical care for her husband and to maintain her child. To earn the money needed, Gaultier decides to take part in some very dangerous under ground fights.

Whilst Van Damme is the star, Harrison Page steals the show as his friend/manager Joshua, I think he is fantastic. Having previously starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone, Brian Thompson stars opposite the new action star in the block (at the time) Deborah Rennard does a fine job as Cynthia.

(62%) Without doubt one of my favourite early(ish) Van Damme movies that is so much more like Street fighter the video game than the actual Street fighter film. This is nuts and bolts late 80's early 90's action B-movie fun right from the very beginning. Van Damme is on physical top form with some impressive moves from the many fights featured, the story is good simple action movie stuff, and even though this is clearly a lowish budgeted film it's always watchable and entertaining. Performance wise this isn't anything of course worth speaking of, but Harrison Page is good fun as the sleazy manager, while Deborah Rennard gets plenty of screen time wearing some of the periods' more curious fashions. Overall any true of Mr Damme should certainly check this out.

Before we head off down critical trail, lets be charitable. This is a Van Damme flick - more or less its own genre, certainly sufficiently signposted for the unwary to avoid if this is not their comfort zone. Now I have to admit to a certain bias - we have almost every film Van Damme has ever made, and for the most part, on simply an entertainment scale, Jean Claude delivers the goods. (Even as late as REPLICANT)

This offering - known pretty much EVERYWHERE but the US as WRONG BET (By far the better title when you watch it) is value for money. You wanna see classical acting? go study Laurence Olivier's HENRY V. You fancy mind bending sci-fi...hell, Kubrick's 2001 ain't never gonna be topped. You want to laugh yourself senseless? go watch a Renny Harlin flick...but you want to see some serious hurting on screen...let Van Damme loose.

I am tiring of the incessant complaints that Van Damme can't act! Did he ever say he could? How many of his detractors could do any better? Could John Wayne? did anyone ever want to SEE him being anything BUT John Wayne? JCVD does a half decent job here I have to say and it strikes me as a case of "let him who is without sin" etc etc when it comes to assassinating his thespian talents.

This film has plenty going for it......namely action, conviction and courage. In the genre in which it finds itself necessarily categorised, I believe a 7 is in order!

Lionheart is clealry one of the best movies Van Damme made in his early days. The film had good fight scenes and a nice plot. Harrison Page as Van Damme's boy provides a lot of good one-liners and Van Damme kicks a lot of ass. I give it *** out of ****.

Van Damme is at his best here, it's a good film that moves at a steady pace and is almost like a Rocky/Street Fighter type film. The characters are played well and the right actors and actresses are picked for the right roles. Van Damme's trainer is great and the silent Van Damme is defiantly the best. The plot also unwinds at the right times and at the right pace. You should give this film a go.