Ranked: Jean-Claude Van Damme – 90s Edition

We have been celebrating the career of Jean-Claude Van Damme all week long here on Bulletproof Action, but today is a special day. Today is October 18th. Today is Jean-Claude Van Damme’s birthday!

What better way to mark this auspicious occasion than by looking back at one of the most significant periods in the career of JCVD, the decade of the 90s. More specifically rank the 16 movies that Jean-Claude Van Damme starred in between 1990 and 1999.

I didn’t want this countdown to just by my opinion, so I reached out to the staff of Bulletproof Action and some of the usual suspects/friends of the site/action fanatics, who are always happy to weigh in on these countdowns…

• Will Slater – The mastermind behind Exploding Helicopter!
• Andrew Babcock – Physical media aficionado!
• Matt Poirier – The Direct to Video Connoisseur himself!
• Robb Antequera – The Cinema Drunkie isn’t just Don “The Dragon” Wilson’s #1 fan, he’s a JCVD fan too!
• Shawn Cavender – Watches more movies in a week than anyone we know!
• Jason McNeil – Action movie veteran and former co-host of Stars Stunts Action!

Allow me to throw it to Andrew to get this countdown started…

Andrew Babcock: Not to the level of some others, but still, this is another one that brings back good memories for me, as I remember it being hyped up during WCW television during the late 90s. While it felt more like a made for TV version of UniSol, compared to the blockbuster of the OG, there is still plenty of tongue in cheek fun to be had here. One man can’t fill the shoes of Lundgren as the adversary, they knew this. So what do they do? Get two epic personalities that are awesome in their own right… The Return sees Van Damme going up against then WCW star Goldberg, and an early breakthrough role for fellow martial artist, Michael Jai White. Less story, but more genetically enhanced action. Some of the biggest highlights of the movie come from Goldberg’s hilarious attempts to chase down a back from the dead Luc Deveraux. The final martial arts showdown between JCVD and MJW lives up to its dream match potential. We also get an all too rare role from the beauty that is Kiana Tom. UniSol: The Return maybe isn’t the return that everyone was hoping for, but to me it still had plenty going for it and plenty of Van Dammage.

Chad Cruise: I’m heartbroken to find this film so far from the top of this list (or is it the bottom?) so I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that it isn’t as popular and maybe the change of style turned off some of our voters. I, as a lover of both Van Damme and history movies, love Legionnaire for doing what no one expected from him at the time. JCVD had already played a member of the Legion once in Lionheart and it was almost like one of the MCU Easter Eggs we see in movies these days when he decided to make another film featuring the French Foreign Legion.

One great thing about Legionnaire is that it has the opportunity to bring in non-Van Damme fans (if such a thing exists) since it doesn’t feature the usual spinning roundhouse/Split quota that most of his flicks have. It’s also the type of movie that just crushes it in regards to the talent on screen. Come for the Van Damme, stay for the historical battles and excellent acting.

Chris the Brain: I think it is safe to classify Desert Heat (aka Inferno) as an oddity. Van Damme’s version of Yojimbo features a supporting cast as eclectic as the movie itself. You’ve got Danny Trejo, Pat Morita, Jaime Pressly, Paul Koslo, Jeff Kober and Larry Drake just to name a few.

The movie had some behind the scenes drama with Director John G. Avildsen wanting his name taken off the picture. Van Damme not liking Avildsen’s cut of the movie (which was known as Coyote Moon) and ended up re-editing the film himself where it became known as Desert Heat or Inferno.

PM Entertainment being involved in the production is a plus in my book. But obviously the real draw for me was Jean-Claude Van Damme who plays Eddie Lomax, a tormented soul who is about to end it all, before he finds a purpose in life after his motorcycle is stolen. Chock full of bad guys to take out, a colorful cast of townsfolk and some Native American lore, Desert Heat was a unique way for JCVD to wrap up the 90 to say the least.

Chris DePetrillo: I’m not sure what day Bison graced me with his presence on the silver screen. It might have been Tuesday, but I can’t say for certain. All I know is that 1994’s Street Fighter was a film that left me with more questions than answers as I left the theater. Guile the American Hero played by a Belgian martial artist? The guy who had just played Gomez Addams as the ultimate boss of a world filled with superfighters? I went in expecting Street Fighter to be filled with as much mindless violence (within the confines of the film’s PG-13 rating) as its video game namesake, but what I got was a glimpse into some weird Street Fighter multiverse where Blanka is an Incredible Hulk knock-off and Zangief is an easily manipulated dope. As much as I loved me some JCVD, even he couldn’t lift this one up to the level of his action classics. It took me a while to really appreciate Street Fighter for the cult classic it became. The G.I. Joe style take on its world was truly something to behold, and while it’s far from my favorite from the onslaught of Van Damme flicks in the 90’s, it still hits the right nostalgia buttons for an occasional rewatch.

Shawn Cavender: After a successful cinematic team-up of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Hong Kong action movie maestro John Woo on 1993’s amazing Hard Target, it made perfect sense for Van Damme to join forces with another HK director blessed with style and experience.  Like Woo, Ringo Lam had distinguished himself with several action films during the 1980’s and early 1990’s, in particular with 1987’s City on Fire.  So, in 1996, Van Damme and Lam collaborated on Maximum Risk, an action-thriller which was a slight change of pace for “The Muscles From Brussels”.

In Maximum Risk, JCVD returns to a concept he had explored in Double Impact, playing identical twin brothers who were separated when they were infants and raised under vastly different circumstances.  Here, however, it’s handled differently, as one brother, French police detective Alain, tries to solve the murder of his twin Mikhail, who had grown up to be a Russian mobster.  During the investigation, Alain meets Mikhail’s fiancée Alex, played by Natasha Henstridge (hot off of her debut in Species the year before). Together, they expose a conspiracy between the Russian mob and the FBI which led to Mikhail’s death.  

Van Damme does a lot more acting than kicking & punching in Maximum Risk, showing improvement in that area since his first starring roles in Bloodsport and Cyborg.  The direction by Ringo Lam is very slick, particularly during the multiple excellent chase scenes in the film.  Lam’s action scenes have a great sense of movement, using skillful camerawork and editing.  An important weakness of Maximum Risk, however, is its scarcity of great martial arts action. Van Damme built his career on memorable, spectacular fight scenes in classics like Bloodsport and Kickboxer, but unfortunately those are lacking in some of his late-90’s movies, like Legionnaire and Maximum Risk.

Still, Maximum Risk is a crime thriller that looks great and delivers some good action.  It’s not god-tier filmmaking like Hard Target or one of Van Damme’s best movies, but it’s worth a try if you’re a Van Damme fan.

Robb Antequera: During the 90s, Van Damme became synonymous with Hong Kong action. Basically, he became the go to action star for HK filmmakers making their way over to the states to dabble in Hollywood. It started in 1993 with John Woo and Hard Target. Then, in 1996, he joined forces with Ringo Lam for Maximum Risk. So in 1997, it became Tsui Hark’s turn in Hollywood. 

Hark, one of Asia’s most influential filmmakers, had already directed some of the most epic martial arts films ever made, including Once Upon a Time in China, Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain, and Peking Opera Blues. If you’ve seen any of the aforementioned, you know how kinetic the energy of Hark’s films can be, so a collaboration with JCVD might be considered a confusing one, since Van Damme at the time was known for his slower, more melodramatic fight sequences. 

Well, in 1997, Double Team was released, with a bevy of negative reviews and lackluster box office. But, in my opinion, don’t listen to the naysayers, because Double Team rules. However, not one to rest on their laurels, Van Damme and Hark decided to make another film together, which was 1998’s Knock Off. Now, I saw this film opening weekend in a packed theater, and lucky for me, this was a pure action crowd. Needless to say, we all loved it. Everyone cheered at all the awesome bits, but I remember thinking as I sat in my seat “What the hell is this movie about?” Almost 30 years later, I think I’m still confused.

You know the common complaint about action movies having “thin plots?” Well, this might be one of the few movies that has too much plot. You CIA, KGB, Gangsters, counterfeit jeans with exploding devices hidden in the buttons that emit a green flame, etc. It’s a lot. But this is not a knock on the film. Oh no, not at all. All of this adds to the absolute lunacy of the entire endeavor. The fact that a movie this crazy got released in theaters at all, let alone 1800 screens, across America is a miracle, not to mention with that cast in place. Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Lela Rochon, Michael Wong, and Paul Sorvino. That’s right, Paul Sorvino is in this. I know, right? It’s the same feeling I had when Richard Harris popped up in Strike Commando 2. 

Also, Hark seemingly was on a mission to let Sam Raimi know he was the king of manic shot, because every frame is basically a Jackson Pollock painting on speed. You just sit there watching like “Where did you get the idea to put the camera there?” But God bless him for doing it, because it makes the movie a “must be seen to be believed” event.

But you know what I love about it the most? When Van Damme and Hark did Double Team, it had some level of craziness to it, but it was certainly a Van Damme Hollywood Action Movie. This one, although produced by an American studio, is 100% an out of control Hong Kong Action Film starring Van Damme, and I think that’s awesome. He went from emulating HK movies with Double Impact, to working with HK directors, to legit starring in a genuine HK action picture. 

That rules.

Matt Poirier: I don’t know that I can “White Knight” Double Team, as the kids say–in fact, I don’t know how great of a case I can make for why I have it as my number 8 in ranking these films, let alone try to tell you why you should like it. Dennis Rodman helps, he was my favorite NBA player at that time, even as a Celtics fan, and it was fitting that Van Damme would find him in this film in a Belgium that was all techno music and dancers in latex fetish outfits, because that’s what you did in Europe in the late 90s. Where better to get my tips frosted, my barbed wire armband tattoo, and my tongue pierced than Belgium, right?

As an action movie, it’s kind of everything that’s bad and everything that’s good about the genre all at once. Leaving the theater after watching it as an 18-year-old, I knew that I’d just seen something that wasn’t exactly great–and maybe even had a sense that Van Damme’s wave had crested, that I wouldn’t be seeing him on the big screen much more after this–but I also knew that in spite of all that, that I’d had a good time, between the great action scenes from director Tsui Hark, to the nuttiness like the large basketball in lieu of a parachute, or the end with tigers and babies and landmines–to quote George Takei, “oh my!” This might not be at the top of your Van Damme movie night list, but if you haven’t seen it in a while, grab a six-pack, order some pizza, and give it a spin.

Andrew Babcock: Growing up in the 90s, my introduction and many of my memories of watching Van Damme movies stem from picking up his past efforts on the video store shelves. I believe The Quest was the first Van Damme movie that I remember anticipating and seeing when it was ‘new’ – so that is one of the reasons why it has always been up there on a pedestal and holds a special place for me. With The Quest, Van Damme goes back to what the audience originally loved him for and that was the old school fighting tournament movies. Add in a dash of mythology with the Lost City and old world charm, as it was set in the 1920s.  The tournament fights were entertaining, seeing all the different styles and combatants from around the world, as Van Damme not only fights for the Golden Dragon, but for his freedom & a chance to get back home. Fantastic supporting turns from Roger Moore, Jack McGee as his opportunistic captors, James Remar who gets his identity stolen, & Janet Gunn as the obligatory reporter who is along for the ride. Plus a whole other slew of familiar friends and foes, like another showdown with a Qissi brother. It is full of just as much heart as it is signature helicopter kicks. The Quest took what I loved of Bloodsport and combined it with an Indiana Jones-esque adventure. 

Shawn Cavender: Back in the early 1990’s, I was always in the theater on opening weekend whenever a new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie came out.  At that time, JCVD was starring in one kick-ass movie after another, and 1993’s Nowhere to Run is no exception.  In fact, Nowhere to Run is one of my favorite Van Damme films, not just from the 90’s, but from his whole filmography.   

The story isn’t anything original, it’s a basic modern Western: some bad guys want a family’s valuable land, but the family doesn’t want to move.  Luckily, a mysterious stranger enters the picture and defends the family from the villains’ increasingly-violent actions.  What elevates Nowhere to Run above the familiar premise is a solid cast, good action, and excellent visuals from director Robert Harmon (who also helmed the amazing 1986 thriller The Hitcher).  Rosanna Arquette is great as the lonely widow who becomes JCVD’s love interest, and Kieran Culkin is charming and funny as one of her two kids.  The men who play the two lead villains are iconic: Joss Ackland (“Diplomatic Immunity” guy from Lethal Weapon 2) and Ted Levine, famous for playing “Buffalo Bill” in The Silence of the Lambs.  It’s also cool to see legendary stuntman and grappler “Judo” Gene LeBell deliver a few lines of dialogue in the movie!

I love the cinematography of Nowhere to Run, particularly the scenes in the barn.  This has to be the best lit barn in the history of the cinema!  The big motorcycle chase is also very well shot by Director of Photography David Gribble.  JCVD must have also appreciated Gribble’s work on this film, because Van Damme employed Gribble as Cinematographer on Van Damme’s directorial debut, 1996’s The Quest.

One last note: while Nowhere to Run is a pretty generic title for the film, it’s a thousand times better than the original working title… Pals!

Matt Spector: Death Warrant sees Jean -Claude Van Damme as Louis Burke, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, basically tricked by shady politicians to go undercover in an American prison to investigate a series of murders. We never see Burke wear one of those striking RMCP ceremonial dress reds so as an American I legally can’t believe he is a Mountie, but that is neither here nor there and it explains the accent. What is here, is Burke dealing with every stereotype of prison life including race gangs, corrupt correctional officers (big ups to Art LaFleur), ladyboys, and a top tier scary villain in Patrick Kilpatrick’s The Sandman. Burke and his roundhouse kicks are not alone, he has Robert Guillaume as Hawkins for help on the inside and Cynthia Gibb as Amanda Beckett for help on the outside. But mostly he has his roundhouse kicks.

Chris DePetrillo: You best believe that my younger self was ready for “Double The Van Damage” as the trailer for Double Impact proudly exclaimed. Having already established myself as an ardent Van Damme fan in my youth thanks to my love for Bloodsport and Kickboxer, the thought of this high-kicking martial arts hero pulling double duty was music to my ears. I can vividly remember the night my cousin rented this one for us to watch; sitting in my family’s old house watching as Chad and Alex Wagner begrudgingly reunite to take down the people who made them orphans. As a kid, it was cool to see Van Damme tangle with the legendary Bolo Yeung again, and Van Damme’s portrayal of Alex as an anti-hero who at times couldn’t be bothered with his brother’s mission of vengeance is what gave me the first inclination that JCVD should embrace the role of a villain again someday.

Chris the Brain: Lionheart is a movie that I absolutely adore. Lionheart played to Jean-Claude Van Damme’s likability perfectly. Who is not going to root for a man like Lyon!? A man who is so driven to help his family, that he will risk it all by going A.W.O.L from the French Foreign Legion, barely making it out of Djibouti, crossing the Atlantic, arriving in New York City, where he finds himself thrust into the world of underground fighting. Fortunately, Lyon is really good at underground fighting and that ends up being his ticket to Los Angeles, where he arrives too late and now has to do whatever he can to help his niece and his brother’s widow… a widow, who blames Lyon for what happened to her husband!

The emotion filled storyline plays out between fight scenes and that is another area where Lionheart really shines. All the fights in Lionheart have unique settings and unique opponents for Lyon to conquer. And both the emotion and the action is elevated by a next level score! How many B-movies have orchestral music!?! The beautiful and powerful music composed by John Scott and performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra hits me in the feels every time I experience the film.

I haven’t even mentioned the not-so-secret sauce of the entire movie, Harrison Page’s Joshua. The Joshua character delivers some of the movie’s best lines and his character goes from Lyon’s business associate, to friend, to family over the course of the movie. Plus, the movie has a quality henchman in the form of Brian Thompson, Abdel Qissi as the final dragon for Lyon to slay in what was an epic final fight that featured a slow clap!

Will Slater: We may never agree which of Van Damme’s 90s films is the best, but the case for Sudden Death being his most riotously entertaining and unapologetically enjoyable is damn near overwhelming.

While the plot is essentially ‘Die Hard in an ice rink’, what elevates Sudden Death above the countless Nakatomi Plaza clones is the unique flavour with which the terrorist-trashing fun is delivered. While the action is never presented in anything other than the straightest of terms, the scenarios frequently veer dangerously close to genre parody (witness the Van Dammage vs penguin fight and his game saving hockey save).

Most action movies either play it straight or lazily point to their own crapness with a post-modern wink, as if that excuses everything. (Snakes on a Plane, anyone?) However, it takes genuine skill to make the audience guffaw at the daftness of the whole endeavour and yet still root for the good guy. It also helps when you have an actor delivering one of the all-time great villainous performances (at least in this writer’s eyes). Alan Rickman is rightly regarded as the John Phillips suited epitome of stylish baddies, but Powers Boothe runs him a close second with the Saharan dry delivery of his one-liners and the casual cruelty with which executes his perfidious plan.

And when the finale features one of the all-time great over-the-top exploding helicopter sequences, I don’t need overtime to make Sudden Death the winner among JCVD’s 90s output.

Chad Cruise: No matter its place on this list, I still consider Universal Soldier the most well-rounded actioner from the man known as Van Damme. It’s not an easy contest to win either since his filmography is busier than that one Thai titty bar from Kickboxer. UniSol boasts some of the best action sequences (everything from fisticuffs to shootouts to chase scenes), and maybe the greatest villain in Van Damme movie history. Dolph Lundgren single-handedly made the ear necklace popular again and who could forget that classic diner ass-whooping scene where Jean Claude ate about 10,000 calories while beating the crap out of every tough guy in town. The magical thing about a list like this is that yours is probably different than the one we came up with but we can all agree that 90’s Van Damme was outstanding!

Jason McNeil: In 2019, I co-starred (OK, “8^th Lead,” but who’s counting?) in a really fun movie called Crossbreed. It was, in addition to being an action packed sci-fi film, a clear throwback – one might even say “an homage” – to 80s and 90s direct-to-video movies that populated the shelves of Blockbuster thru the height of the VHS era. Its filled with both visual and verbal references and, perhaps the most obvious, is a recurring, running joke where the space mercenaries talk about how much they love Timecop.  

“Timecop? I LOVE Timecop! Timecop is a great fucking movie!” 

And, y’know, they’re not wrong. Timecop IS a great effing movie – arguably the absolute best of Van Damme’s non-karate tournament offerings – but, upon re-watch for writing this review, something struck me even more. 

Timecop is, perhaps, more relevant now than it was when it blew up the big screen in 1994, then went into regular rental and HBO rotation about six months later. 

Sure, its an intelligent flick that manages to exist and tell a great story at the intersection of the Venn Diagrams of “hard boiled detective,” “multiverse-themed science fiction” and “JCVD kicking ass” (and almost showing ass, when he does his obligatory “hanging splits” scene in his underwear while fighting the magnificently maned future Emmy winner James Lew), but there are themes in this story that, quite frankly, could be pulled from today’s “Breaking News.” 

Our villain, portrayed by the always menacing Ron Silver, is a narcissistic, corrupt to his core politician, who is determined to win the election to become the next President of the United States. To achieve this, he is willing to abuse his powers, break the laws, disrupt the time lines, commit murder and even risk destroying the world, all to make his dream of taking over the Oval Office come true. 

Wow. Maybe its just because I re-watched this after NBC Nightly News, but…. Yeah. It hit kind of hard, and felt like a movie that have been released yesterday.  

Also…. Mia Sara boobs. Well, one boob. The left one. She’s Jean Claude’s wife, and they get conjugal early on, in a very sexy scene, before things go all sideways. But, yeah. Mia Sara boob. 

So….  To once again quote (and shamelessly plug) Stink Fisher as “Boss” in Crossbreed: “Timecop is a GREAT fucking movie!” It most definitely is. And is, in my opinion, the best of Van Damme’s 1990’s offerings.   BUT, its entirely possible that its a GREATER fucking movie now than it was when it came out.  And, lest we forget, it has Mia Sara boobs.

 Do yourself a favor and check it out!

Chris the Brain: What happens when you combine an action star on the rise with an acclaimed Hong Kong director looking to make a name for himself in Hollywood?! You get the absolute magic that was 1993’s Hard Target.

John Woo and his Gun Fu style paired perfectly with Jean-Claude Van Damme (and his martial arts skills and magnificent mullet) as they played the most dangerous game with a top tier cast of heavies that included Arnold Vosloo, Sven-Ole Thorsen and the incomparable Lance Henriksen. The movie made the most of the Louisiana setting, while delivering some jaw dropping action! Throw in Yancy Butler as the woman who gets JCVD’s Chance Boudreaux caught up in this battle with Henriksen’s Emil Fouchon and Wilford Brimley as Chance’s wily uncle Douvee, and you have yourself a big pot of action gumbo that will satisfy any action fanatic’s appetite!