Lionheart (1991)
* * *


Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Harrison Page, Deborah Rennard, Brian Thompson,Lisa Pelikan

Directed by Sheldon Lettich

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as a legionnaire who goes AWOL to see his dying brother, he doesn’t succeed in time, and so he street fights to keep his deceased brother’s family from being homeless in this enjoyable retelling of Hard Times. Lionheart will not be remembered as 1991’s best movie (or even 1991’s best Van Damme movie) but it’s story while silly and padded, manages to be serviceable backdrop to the excellent fight sequences, and while the plot involving the foreign legion is trite and forced, the fight sequences and indeed the family scenes give this movie a little more depth than one might expect. If anything else the final fight in the climax is in particular excellent and very suspenseful.