Details
| Director: | Peter MacDonald |
| Writer: | Sheldon Lettich, Rebecca Morrison |
| Producer: | Peter MacDonald, Edward R. Pressman |
| Theatrical: | 1999 |
| Rated: | R |
| Studio: | Studio Home Entertainment |
| Genre: | War, Adventure, Action |
| Duration: | 1 hr 38 mins |
| Languages: | English |
| Subtitles: | English, Spanish |
| Sound: | Dolby Surround [English] |
| Aspect Ratio: | Fullscreen (4:3, Letterboxed) |
| Picture Format: | Widescreen |
| Discs: | 1 |
| Region: | Region 1 |
| Release: | Jan 1998 |
Summary
Exiled to a video-only release when its distributor balked after the flop of Jean-Claude Van Damme's previous film <I>Knock Off</I>, this lavish adventure deserved a chance at theatrical success. Action icon Van Damme recasts himself as a tragic romantic hero in this entertaining old-fashioned adventure with a modern sensibility. "The Muscles from Brussels" is no Brando, but he acquits himself nicely as a cocky boxer who double-crosses a Marseilles mobster and joins the French Foreign Legion when his half-baked plan backfires with tragic consequences. Surrounded by a better than usual cast (including Steven Berkoff as a Teutonic drill sergeant, Jim Carter as the ruthless ganglord, and Nicholas Farrell as a gentleman soldier with a taste for gambling and a dark past), Van Damme's dour performance sometimes gets lost in the colorful characters around him. But that's okay--there's adventure enough to go around and he's willing to share it. The Marseilles scenes evoke a quaint movie past with their smoky bars and shadowy streets, but the film is reborn as an ambitious, stoic platoon drama in the sands of French Morocco. <I>Legionnaire</I> alludes to classic films from <I>Beau Geste</I> to <I>Casablanca</I> to <I>Lawrence of Arabia</I>, but ultimately marches its own macho course, reveling in testosterone-driven heroics and bonding-under-fire while acknowledging the irony of its colonial mission ("We're the intruders," realizes one soldier). It's a calculated risk for Van Damme (who also cowrote and coproduced), but if <I>Legionnaire</I> never quite grasps the epic scope it's reaching for, it remains one of his best films, a handsome, exciting, and surprisingly grim desert adventure. <I>--Sean Axmaker</I>
