Hard Target

Hard Target reappears years later in a longer working version (116 minutes), which is considered to be Woo‘s director’s cut. It differs from the theatrically released version mainly in the differently edited and composed action sequences and a handful of Woo‘s trademarks, primarily where his work with pathos is concerned. The most noticeable change is the mirror montages that literally reveal the motivations of Fouchon and Boudreaux, while Henriksen‘s antagonist is introduced while playing the piano in a spacious mansion, which is intercut with documentary footage of wild game being killed by hunters, and Van Damme‘s protagonist receives a shotgun from his uncle in his cottage in the closing part of the film, which is interspersed with shots of people killed by Fouchon; whereas killing is a form of amusement for the bad guy, it is a means of revenge and punishing evil for the hero. Furthermore, the working version contains two sequences of Chance and Natasha coming together, where we learn more about these characters, but there is also a full spectrum of additional shots and brief passages. Conversely, the theatrically released version contains a much longer and more bombastic elimination of the antagonist – in the working version, Van Damme simply kicks Henriksen once from a high jump, launching Henriksen onto a pile of rubbish, and then throws a grenade at his feet, eliciting a look of annoyed resignation from the villain, and finito. ____ From today‘s perspective, Hard Target is an amazing relic due to the fact that they simply don’t make many movies like this anymore; in the new millennium, we are witnesses to the extinction of the mid-budget action-movie category. This is connected with changes in distribution and the gradual restriction of the market for physical media for home use – only big-budget, high-concept spectacles and sophisticated, expensive genre flicks make it to the cinemas today, while the video market is now driven solely by low-budget C-movies and acts of desperation from the likes of Asylum and Tomcat Films. Though it is still possible to find ambitious filmmakers with a distinctive action style in the latter category, they are rarely given the ideal constellation of resources and appropriate actors to show what they can do (see Isaac Florentine and Undisputed III, William Kaufman and Sinners & Saints and John Hyams and Universal Soldier: Regeneration). In its day, Hard Target was one of several generously financed B-movie action projects that enticed viewers with a mid-level star in the lead role and a fresh concept, or rather a variation on a traditional theme. Whereas other contemporary projects in the given category, such as Universal Soldier, Under Siege and Timecop, were based on a strong high-concept premise, Hard Target has a surprisingly straightforwardly trashy screenplay. In this case, no one even looked too hard at the story, because the main attraction was the rising star Van Damme, who presented a new image (though from today‘s perspective, his greasy mullet and raincoat seem rather pathetic, but values were a bit different back in the dark days of the 1990s), and primarily the involvement of the renowned master of action choreography from Hong Kong, which promised a completely unprecedented spectacle (as the film‘s promotional materials repeatedly emphasised at the time). Hard Target is thus a representation of the ideal combination of Woo‘s bloody ballet and an American genre film, where the master was hired specifically for his qualities, but his style had not yet strayed into the realm of bombastic melodramas. Apart from the action passages, the film is interesting as an American B-movie with an unusually bold local atmosphere. The distinctively thematised Louisiana setting, imbued with the motifs of unemployment and poverty, which are further developed to the level of the crisis of the role of men in society and in the context of family, elevate the film above the level of an ordinary, generic action film in the same way that the use of local and historical motifs enhanced Woo's Hong Kong movies. (10.05.2015) (minder) (meer)