Brad reviews LIONHEART (1990), starring Jean-Claude Van Damme!

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Bradley Crain

As a teenager of the late 80’s, I became a huge fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme when I watched movies like BLOODSPORT (1988), CYBORG (1989), KICKBOXER (1989), and DEATH WARRANT (1990). He really seemed to be going big-time with movies like UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (1992), HARD TARGET (1993) and especially TIMECOP (1994). Unfortunately, through a variety of problems, including a reportedly uncontrollable ego, a seemingly never ending supply of gratuitous butt shots for the ladies, and potential drug issues, his star would begin to wane in the mid-1990’s and he’d soon find his career heading the wrong direction. Through it all though, I’ve always loved Van Damme, and I still like to watch his movies (both new and old) to this day. One of the films that he made in his prime was LIONHEART (1990). I remember renting the movie as soon as it became available at our local video store, and even though I don’t hear it spoken of often these days, it’s always been one of my favorite films of the so-called “Muscles from Brussels!”

LIONHEART stars Van Damme as Lyon Gaultier, a French Foreign Legionnaire who deserts his post in North Africa after finding out that his drug addict brother, who lives in Los Angeles, has been set on fire and is barely clinging to life. Determined to help his brother’s family, Lyon goes AWOL and hops a boat to the United States of America. Unfortunately, Lyon finds himself stranded in New York with no money, until he stumbles across an underground street fight. With the connections of a hustler named Joshua (Harrison Page) and a sexy fight organizer named Cynthia (Deborah Rennard), Lyon’s talent in the ring allows him to make the money he needs to go to L.A. When he finally makes it to the west coast, his brother has passed away, leaving huge medical bills for his wife Helene (Lisa Pelikan) and young daughter, Nicole (Ashley Johnson). Continuing to fight in the underground market in L.A. to provide funds for his sister-in-law, Lyon takes on increasingly dangerous opponents, including the savage Attila (Abdel Qissi) in a high-stakes fight that could settle his family’s financial problems for good… if it doesn’t kill him.

I mentioned earlier that I’m a big fan of LIONHEART. With that said, I can certainly see some flaws in the film. The performances aren’t all great. For example, Deborah Rennard is somewhat ridiculous as the sexy, duplicitous Cynthia. Her character is as cliched as it gets, even if she does look good in her see-through stockings. It’s also too long. Clocking in at almost an hour and fifty minutes, the film is at least twenty minutes too long. There are definitely scenes that could have been trimmed down to make for a more efficient movie. Flaws acknowledged, I watched it again today, and I still love the movie. Directed by Sheldon Lettich (DOUBLE IMPACT), LIONHEART delivers the goods as a badass, fight film with a heart. The action sequences drew me in with Van Damme’s athletic spins and kicks, but it also reminded me of my favorite film of all time, HARD TIMES (1975) starring Charles Bronson. In HARD TIMES, Bronson takes out a cocky bastard with one punch to the face. In LIONHEART, Van Damme takes out a cocky bastard with one punch to the nuts. Both films deliver final showdowns against awesome opponents that deliver brutal and satisfying climaxes to the action. And both films go for real emotion. In HARD TIMES, those relationships are limited to the men in Bronson’s life, but in LIONHEART, Lyon’s relationships with his friend Joshua, as well as his love for his niece and widowed sister-in-law really set the film apart. Van Damme isn’t a great actor at this point in his career, but there’s just something really appealing about his unconditional love for his family. He won me over with his earnest performance, and I was all in when everything comes to a head at the end. It was also fun seeing producer Lawrence Bender (PULP FICTION, ANNA AND THE KING, KILL BILL) cameo in an early fight scene as a doofus with a pony tail who gets his ass handed to him by Van Damme. That’s just fun movie stuff.

Playing on Amazon Prime as I type, I easily recommend LIONHEART to any person who likes Van Damme or action films of the 80’s and 90’s. It may be as cheesy as hell, but in my opinion, it’s one of the star’s best films.

HBO showcases The Last of Us Teaser Trailer!

Posted on September 26, 2022 by Leonard Wilson

Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us was one of the first modern videogames to gain my younger cousin’s interest in playing. Although I finished it the normal difficulty, she was able to complete it on its hardest settings and went on to continue with the sequel. So, we’ve been looking forward to HBO’s Live Action adaptation. What I didn’t realize was that Craig Mazin was involved in this, whose work on Chernobyl was amazing. Mazin is handling the writing along with the original author, Neil Druckman.

The Last of Us takes place in a world torn apart, where Joel & Ellie (Pedro Pascal & Bella Ramsey, both featured in Game of Thrones) have a difficult mission to accomplish. The show looks as if it’s keeping most of the elements from the game. The Fireflies and the Clickers, they’re all there. The cast listing even includes some of the voice cast from the game. I’m curious to see how they’ll incorporate that into this.

The Last of Us is set to premiere next year, on HBO and HBO Max.

https://youtu.be/rBRRDpQ0yc0

Back to School #53: Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 (dir by Tim McCanlies)

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 is a 1998 film about a small town in West Texas that only has a population of 81 citizens. Just from my own experience of telling people about how much I happen to like this movie, I get the feeling that only 81 people may have actually seen it. But no matter! Regardless of how many people have actually seen it, Dancer, Texas is one of my favorite films about my home state.

Dancer starts out with a scene that is so quintessentially Texan that it might as well appear next to Texas in the dictionary. Four teenagers — all of whom are scheduled to soon graduate from high school — sit out in the middle of the highway. The road seems to stretch on forever. The land around them is empty. If you’ve ever been to West Texas, you know what type of land I’m talking about. It’s the type of land where you feel like you can see forever. In the far distance, we see a pair of headlights.

“Car’s comin'” one of them drawls, knowing that they’ve got at least another 15 minutes before that car ever gets anywhere near the tiny town of Dancer, Texas.

These four teenage boys make up 80% of the graduating class of Dancer’s high school and all four of them are planning on leaving town and heading for Los Angeles. Keller (Breckin Meyer) is their leader, the big dreamer who can’t wait to get out of the state. Terrell Lee (Peter Facinelli) is the son of the only rich man in town and he’s being pressured by his mother to stay in Dancer and to learn the oil business. John (Eddie Mills) is the simplest of the four and also the most reluctant about leaving. He simply wants to be a farmer and he can’t understand why his taciturn father refuses to say anything to keep him from leaving town. And finally, there’s Squirrel (Ethan Embry), who is the weird one. Every group needs a weird one and Squirrel is weird even by the usual standards of small town oddness.

Not much happens in Dancer, Texas. That goes for both the film and the town. Over the course of two days, all four of the boys are forced to decide whether they really want to leave or if they actually want to stay. Adding an extra poignancy to their decision is the fact that there literally is no chance that life in Dancer is ever going to change. Dancer is as it has always been and always will be. Deciding to stay means staying forever. And, as the film shows, that’s okay for some people and terrible for others.

I really like Dancer, Texas. Yes, it does move at its own deliberate pace and yes, a few scenes do tend to get a bit too obvious in their sentimentality (just to name two of the complaints that I saw from some commenters over at the imdb). Meyer, Facinelli, and Mills all give such wonderfully natural performances that it makes you all the more aware that Embry seems a bit out-of-place. But, ultimately, none of that matters. Dancer, Texas is one of the most honest and sincere films that I’ve ever seen and it’s a film that does my home state proud.

Lisa’s Rating: 8 out of 10

Trailer: Much Ado About Nothing

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Arleigh

There’s finally a trailer out about the little film that Joss Whedon made while doing post on his previous little film called The Avengers.

Much Ado About Nothing is a modern and Whedon’s own interpretation of the classic William Shakespeare comedic play. Filmed over the span of 12 days in Whedon’s own Santa Monica home, the film has a cast of Whedom alumni who either has worked with the writer-director on one of his tv series or in his films. The trailer itself has a coolness factor that has to be part jazz used in the trailer and half seeing all the familiar faces Whedon fans have come to know and love through the years like Amy Acker, Alex Denisof, Nathan Fillion and, more recently, Clark Gregg.

Much Ado About Nothing premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and will make it’s North American wide release on the date of June 7, 2013.