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  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 2.35:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • French: Dolby Digital Surround
  Subtitles
    English, French, Dutch
  Extras
  • Theatrical trailer

Maximum Risk

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 97 mins . M15+ . PAL

  Feature
Contract

Van Damme plays French Cop Alain Moreau who turns up to a homicide scene where the deceased victim is a spitting image of himself. This person turns out to be his identical twin that was taken away from his mother at birth.

His brother had been caught up with the Russian mob who, on his decision to leave the mob, comes across a list of corrupt US government agents which led him to death. But, due to his likeness, there are still people after him and this incriminating list.

Classic action movies such as Maximum Risk are way past their time. In the 80's this would have been a hit. It is a good action flick with some good scenes but it doesn't hold up to the quality/quantity of scenes we are bombarded with these days.

One scene in particular was the fight in the sauna scene. A classic example of how to film a good fight when it is hard to conceal alot of the action on bare skin. Van Damme's opponent insults his body size and is a well built tank. This scene reminded me a little of the bathroom scene in True Lies. Is it me or have many of Van Dammes movies these days touched on the topic of revenge - another 80's action characteristic.

Onto the specifics of the dvd.

  Video
Contract

The most obvious problem for this disc is the graininess of the picture. For such a young film, it certainly looks as though it was made on the cheap side of film media.

The transfer is of the anamorphic 2.35:1 ratio format which is very encouraging once again from Columbia. Colors are nicely saturated but some scenes had varying degrees of shadow detail as compared to others.

All in all, a decent picture for a decent movie.

  Audio
Contract

Audio on the other hand was lively in many scenes. Dialogue seemed a bit drowned out but after a little fiddling with the borrowed Onkyo, the right levels were achieved and a clearer center channel was achieved.

Surround effects were frequently used and it was surprising how much more noticeable left-right pans were to other movies. I'd have to attribute this to 'less' effects in the surrounds that didn't confuse you as much as a more quantity rich soundtrack would.

One scene in particular, the bath house scene again, you could hear alot of murmuring in the surrounds and then alot of comotion as the action started to heat up which was very evident.

Bass wasn't as deep as many other soundtracks of this nature were but it was evident and used appropriately. I was going to give the audio a 8 but I'll move it down to a 7 for a simple annoying fact - The audio seemed to be out of sync toward the end of the movie. It could have been that some voices were dubbed (looped)

  Extras
Contract

Your standard features from Columbia so nothing overly eye catching on the menu this time. A trailer is pretty much the only other footage you get. I did find that the scene selection menu seemed squished in the anamorphic format which seemed to indicate the menu encoding on the disc was done incorrectly.

  Overall  
Contract

One of Van Damme's better movies, simply for the fact that the amount of one-liners was ALOT lower than some of his other efforts which lets you enjoy the movie more rather than some lighthearted distractions that is becoming too common in both Sci-fi and action these days.

It's an old plot just with a bigger name actor and even Van Damme couldn't pull this along. Natasha Henstridge is just another distraction for both the viewer and Van Damme himself.


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      And I quote...
    ""
    - Steve Koukoulas
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-505 Gold
    • TV:
          Hitachi CMT2979 68cm
    • Receiver:
          Onkyo TX-DS747
    • Speakers:
          Peterson Labs 100Watts
    • Centre Speaker:
          Sherwood SC-60E
    • Surrounds:
          Sherwood LS-502
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
      Recent Reviews:
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