Cavale sans issue

Having recently revisited my old Van Damme collection (my wife has developed a bit of a crush on JC), I have made my way through all the classics (Bloodsport, AWOL, Kickboxer, Death Warrant, Universal Soldier etc) and hugely enjoyed revelling in the guilty pleasure of watching a short, white Belgian dude kick the living snot out of everyone else on the screen. Why else would anyone go to see a Van Damme picture?

The last film I came to was Nowhere to Run. Having not seen it in a good ten years, and remembering it as slow-paced, indulgent and severely lacking in arse-kicking, I was not really expecting to be at all impressed. It's funny, looking through most of the reviews here, that two groups of people have clearly emerged. The first group, the Van Damme fans, are all complaining that this is not your average VD film and bitching about how they were cheated into watching a serious drama.

The other group are all up in arms at the fact that anyone would make a serious drama and cast Van Damme in it. I have a name for this group, but I doubt IMDb would publish it. Let's just call them w*nkers. Why the w*nkers, who clearly have an abundant dislike for the Muscles from Brussells, would go to see a film with his name above the title is beyond me. Cinesnobs have no place at a Van Damme show. I'll leave it at that.

The reason I felt compelled to write this review is that I am, admittedly, a bit of a Cinesnob, but I'm also happy to take a film for what it is. I like James Bond, I like Sonny Chiba, I like blaxploitation and I also fricking like Van Damme movies! What I did not expect, was for "a serious drama starring Van Damme" (trying saying that out loud without snickering) to be so Damme good! (Get it?)

The story is pretty simple, JC is an escaped con who happens upon a sleepy little town which is about to be pulverised by a nihilistic land developer (not surprisingly, a British one, played with appropriate menace by Joss Ackland). He befriends a little boy (not in the Michael Jackson way, though the boy in question is, ironically, Macaulay Culkin's younger brother, Kieran) and consequently gets rather chummy with the boy's mother. Happily, she is both widowed and incredibly hot. As if her being a still distraught widow weren't enough, she is also being harassed to a rather unreasonable degree by Ted Levine, who is hilarious and brilliant and the land developer's chief henchman. Cue Van Damme.

Sounds like the ideal recipe for another typical action flick, so I am willing to forgive those VD fans who felt cheated. What we actually end up with is a genuinely moving, well paced and hugely enjoyable action drama. It may sound unthinkable, but JC actually pulls his character off perfectly. Sam is mistrusting, awkward but ultimately striving to be a decent person. Director Mark Harmon made a very savvy decision in keeping JC's dialogue to a minimum, leaving him the task of creating a believable character with his face and body language alone. Don't believe the naysayers, JC delivers a truly surprising performance.

Rosanna Arquette also handles her role well, even if the character is flying dangerously close to stereotype. Her performance grounds the whole story, and we both care for her plight and admire her determination (the men in the audience will also admire her perfectly formed semi-naked body). The two kids were bound to be annoying, but they're certainly nowhere close to being as bad as they could have been.

The real star of this film is the consistently beautiful cinematography by the relatively unknown David Gribble. With scenery like this, you'd be hard pressed to go wrong with the external stuff, but the interiors are equally well shot.

The big let down, both in terms of cinematography and the film as a whole, is the truly lame action. There are only a handful of action sequences in the whole show, but they're easily the dullest moments in the film. When you have a good story, solid characters and a really well-cast group of fine actors, do you really need to throw in a bunch of crappy fights? Sadly, if you're selling this as a Van Damme picture, the answer is yes. So they had the courage to put JC in a serious role and give him the chance to prove that he can actually act, but they didn't have the balls to actually sell the film on this basis. The trailer says "Van Damme, as you've never seen him before" and then just gives us a bunch of poor action clips. Is it any wonder that nobody who actually bothered to see this film liked it?

If it weren't bad enough that the action scenes are badly shot and clumsily edited, they're also punctuated by really poor one-liners from JC ("Strike 3, you're out!" and "Au revoir, f**ker" are among the worst). One gets the feeling that there were differences in the opinions of the director and the star and the opinions of the producers and studio folk. Presumably, someone thought they had found a happy balance. Someone was wrong, and the film really suffers as a consequence.

If you can overlook this, and you're not watching the film either to complain that it's not a solid action flick or to complain that Van Damme is in a drama, you'll probably find yourself surprisingly impressed with the film.

"NoWhere to Run" is another pure 90's Van Damme action flick & it's a decent film with a good performance by Van Damme as the lone hero, man-on-the-run convict who stumbles upon a nice farmland & farmhouse to hide out & ends up helping the a single mum (Rosanna Arquete) & her kids. This is a nice story actually & Van Damme is good in the acting department & in the action department. Damme ends up helping fight back against some land developer villains (a great Ted Levine) & protecting the family.

Yes there's some cheesy bits but it's an action Thriller with a heart.

Now the 90's wouldn't of been the 90's without Van Damme & his movies!!!! Growing up as a teen during that great time i was massively into Van Damme & couldn't wait for his next movie to come out & i would buy it straight away on video, Awwww Nostalgia & big love for my childhood hero Van Damme.

Yes i grew up on Schwarzenegger, Stallone & Seagal too but it was Van Damme's films that i watched constantly & consider some of his as Action Classic's & some of my all time favourite films like his Apocalyptic Action Masterpiece CYBORG (1989) that's a true childhood Classic of mine, also the John Woo action extravaganza HARD TARGET (1993) & the fun & action-packed DOUBLE IMPACT (1991) & the gritty & tough A. W. O. L (1990) & the brutal prison Action Thriller DEATH WARRANT (1990) plus many more that i genuinely love too like Time Cop, Sudden Death, Maximum Risk & Universal Soldier. Van Damme was such a big part of the 90's & my childhood.

Nowhere to Run is another good action Thriller & a nice 90's time capsule of those better times.

Nowhere To Run is one of Van Damme's better films. It has a nice storyline and some good acting. The direction is tight and I lked the score also. Not bad, but will probably be overlooked because it's a Van Damme picture.

"Nowhere to Run" is a 1993 action film with decent action star Jean Claude Van Damme. Although good for fans of the genre and Van Damme, it may be a let down for others. Why I myself am not a diehard Van Damme fan (at least he did "Hard Target"), I thought this movie was good. Why, you ask? Because it has Ted Levine as the bad guy.! Anyway, this movie caught me by surprise. I thought it would be one of those bad movies where stuff explodes just so you can watch stuff explode. But I found it to be a decent vehicle for it's stars, and you never can go wrong with Ted Levine. It's a nice little movie. 6 out of 10.

Van Damme has a reputation as a kickboxer or an ass kicker and a martial artist. No one really thinks he can act and the only reason he has a career in the movies is because he can do all those things and because women swoon over him. Being the quintessential guy, I am pretty much in the category of guys that likes to see him in films that are loaded with kicks to the head and punches to the stomach. It is a guy thing to want to see guys like Van Damme, Arnold, Sly and Seagal kick some major butt. But I have to admit that as much as I like some of his films that are action and nothing but, this film really blew me away. I was completely convinced with the love story and I felt for the characters. Jean Claude gives his best performance in here. And the sript being written by Eszetheras is perfect. This is a film that relies more on character and dialogue than it does kickboxing skills. And perhaps that alienates die hard Van Damme fans but for the rest of the audience out there this is a great step in the right direction. I have heard people that love his smashmouth style of film say that this is a more tame Van Damme and they don't like it that much, but when your films only gross about the same amount as a typical Friday the 13th film, it's safe to say that there is room to grow and Nowhere to Run is definitely growth. The only reason that people didn't go to see it is because it is Van Damme. But this has so much more to offer than just your typical action flick. The romance is fresh and Kieran Culkin is excellent as the young tyke who grows attached to Van Damme. It's just too bad Claude couldn't make more movies like this one because I really think people would warm up to this style of movie from him and eventually his box office appeal would grow. But as long he continues to make movies like Universal Soldier 2 and Knock Off, he will forever be stuck in that mold.

Nowhere to Run is a great film and when it came out in 1993, I remember making out my list for the ten best films that year, and yes, this one was on it. I highly recommend it. I think you will be surprised. However, if you are hard core and like to see his films with lots of kicks and blood and cheesy lines from guys like Bolo Yeung, then don't go see this one, it is too much of a movie for you to enjoy.