#11 — Hard Target
This is part of an illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Last week I talked about an action cop that becomes an action surfer, causing him to rethink his whole life, in Point Break.
In the worn out hypothetical that aliens come to Earth looking to study and understand our culture, there needs to be a go-to example that you can stand by. They’re not interested in whatever zany Tim & Eric video you’re convinced will befuddle them, they’re not here to mess around. They need action movies (specifically a blu ray copy of Hard Target). That’s what we’ve gotta give them. That, and some good pizza. I guarantee you they don’t have those things on their home planet* and we’ve gotta stop being so down on each other and have a little self respect. Plus, maybe we could get something out of the deal, like clean renewable energy.
*I suppose we have to consider the possibility that there’s like a Planet Dropkick out there that has way better action movies. Maybe aliens watch our culture ironically, like it’s the Samurai Cop or Miami Connection of the galaxy, but I‘m trying to be optimistic.
If there’s anything that could blow the mind of an extraterrestrial searching the stars for culture, it’s probably the scene where Van Damme grabs a guy’s pistol and fires it upside down into Sven-Ole Thorson’s chest, then helicopter kicks the cigar out of his mouth in slow motion — punctuated by electric guitar and trademark John Woo doves (I think they’re actually be pigeons in this scene, but same difference). It’s possibly one of the purest representations of the art form ever put to screen.
That’s what we’re dealing with here. That’s Hard Target. It’s like a Spicy Nacho Dorito kicking Oliver Twist in his porridge-eating mouth while he begs for more. We, the home viewers, are the Oliver in this scenario and we absolutely love Doritos.
Hard Target, as basic a tale as it is, wears an entire ammo belt of Action Cinema hallmarks that elevate its status. It’s a Most Dangerous Game setup where Lance Henriksen plays a wealthy businessman named Emil Fuchon. He has a henchman named Pik van Cleef (Arnold Vosloo) and together they arrange local hunts in New Orleans.
They target homeless veterans because they want people that can fight back just enough to make it interesting, and desperate enough to agree to it in the first place. This is an especially monstrous thing to do, because they’re essentially forcing some of these guys to relive the horrors of the Vietnam war for a piddly few grand. They’re debasing and murdering men through their own misfortune.
Henriksen is terrific as the villain, and he does two things I love. One is that he plays the piano in his fancy mansion. Sometimes in action movies, the hero will have a softer hobby that humanizes him — like in Hard Boiled, where Tequila plays jazz clarinet. When a bad guy does this, it means he’s extra bad. He’s not basic Budweiser evil, he’s an aged bottle of intelligent, sophisticated evil grown from the vineyard. This makes him even more dangerous. The other thing he does is the cartoon gesture of yelling at his men to “don’t just stand there, go after him!”.
On the other side of that, you have one of action cinema’s greatest heroes, Chance Boudreaux. A lot of action heroes are cops, which means that in spite of their best efforts to secure cathartic, cinematic justice, they still indirectly represent a class divide. Chance is a true hero for the people. He’s a Cajun drifter looking for work, with a similar profile to Roddy Piper from They Live. He’s rubbed shoulders with some of the people Fuchon has hunted, so his fight is personal. He wears boots, flannel, denim, and a long overcoat. He also has a permed mullet that makes him look sort of like a lion. He’s our hard target.
A lot of Van Damme’s work (especially to this point) has relied on stylized action posing. It’s more about capturing the human form as a glossy magazine cover. It’s mostly worked for him, but he’s never looked better on screen than in Hard Target. Whether it’s Woo’s directing, the editing, or a combination — Van Damme is constantly on the move and being framed in the most cinematic way possible. Flipping, spin-kicking, jumping through windows, sliding under tables, and even mixing his karate with duel wielding pistols in the heat of battle.
There’s a bit near the beginning of the big warehouse finale where Chance welcomes his foes by descending from the rafters on a giant pelican parade float while blowing up everything in sight with a pump shotgun and it’s like the 8th coolest thing he does in the movie. I mean, really the whole climax is just a stacked deck of stylish action moments being tossed out left and right. A lesser director would horde those heroic feats for the right time, but Woo generously expends them like his bottomless clips of ammo. Next thing you know, Lance Henriksen is getting a grenade dropped down his pants, the end credits are rolling, and you’re wondering how an entire weeks worth of Mardi Gras mayhem soaked in gasoline and gunpowder was injected directly into your vein. Kinda makes me feel like one of those Gushers commercials where the kid’s head turns into a giant blue raspberry and then explodes in euphoria.
One point of criticism with John Woo’s directing, and with this movie in particular, are his use of freeze frames. This technique was a bit of a roadblock for me early in life because of the J. Geils Band’s song, which conditioned me to laugh at it. I grew out of that and now embrace it as an unironic expression of trying to highlight a feeling or single moment in a medium that constantly wants to move on to the next one.
They way Woo uses it here is actually pretty effective because he tosses out several of them right before poor Elijah realizes he’s going to the Great Beyond. The flood of panic before an accident being condensed into a clear realization of your fate. It highlights the hopelessness of his situation, and it’s a little heartbreaking.
Woo always pushes feeling in his action, but it’s one of many layers forming his heightened realities. You could argue Face/Off is his American masterpiece, but Hard Target has a textured, manic, visual dynamism that is rivaled only by his Hong Kong collaborations with Chow Fun Fat. It’s a great looking movie that is simultaneously a hilarious romp and a monument to action craft.
I don’t think it should be a mark of ridicule that Hard Target is the kind of movie a cartoon would spoof. This is our live action McBain, our Monsignor Martinez, our Pickle Rick. It’s whole visual presentation feels tuned to what I want, and what Bart Simpson wants, and what the aliens would definitely want if they knew what they were missing.
