5 Great Jean-Claude Van Damme Movies Nobody Talks About

Belgian martial artist turned box office gold leading man Jean-Claude Van Damme worked hard to put himself in the league of other A-list action stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, and the like. From his earliest lead star vehicle, Bloodsport, Van Damme hasn’t just acted, he’s also served as editor on occasion as well as fight director and choreographer. And throughout his 1988 to 1999 theatrical film career, he starred in quite a few substantial box office hits. And, unfortunately, some of his better efforts within that period seem to have been somewhat forgotten to time. Those are the movies of his that follow, Van Damme vehicles that deserve a bit more love and respect.

So, none of his heavy hitters, such as Bloodsport, Timecop, Kickboxer, Street Fighter, Hard Target, and Universal Soldier. The Expendables 2 was also out, even though the strength of his suave, quiet, and menacing performance doesn’t get enough credit now that the excellent sequel has been more or less lumped in with the vastly inferior The Expendables 3 and Expend4bles.

5) Lionheart

Lionheart kind of gets lost in the shuffle of Van Damme’s similar early works. Specifically, Bloodsport and Kickboxer. And, while it’s not as solid and likable as Bloodsport, it’s better than Kickboxer.

Van Damme plays French Foreign Legionnaire Lyon Gaultier, who escapes the Legion to go visit his brother, who is dying after his house was burnt down during a drug deal goes south. He gets into street fights (and wins them) so he can pay his way to Los Angeles, only to find out he has arrived too late. And, while his brother’s killers have been apprehended, his sister and law and niece have been left horribly in debt. To help them out, Lyon once more enters the ring to help pay the medical bills. It’s all very straightforward, but Van Damme’s acting skills had been slightly more honed since starring in the other two aforementioned basic ring fighting flicks.

Stream Lionheart on Prime Video.

4) Double Impact

Van Damme may not be seen in the same light as Anthony Hopkins or Daniel Day-Lewis, nor should he be, but like them he has always been a performer more than willing to push himself. Not just physically, but as an actor.

Take, for instance, Double Impact, which has him play twin brothers Alex and Chad Wagner. Chad is the gentler of the two, which allows Van Damme to show off his likability, while Alex is far rougher around the edges (and, admittedly, uses some language that hasn’t aged well). But, of course, they can both fight, which allows Van Damme to display his primary talent: acrobatics.

3) Sudden Death

There were a few solid movies that took the template of 1988’s Die Hard and ran with it. For instance, Air Force One, Under Siege, Passenger 57, Cliffhanger, Olympus Has Fallen, and The Rock. Even Passenger 57, the least effective of those aforementioned actioners, has its entertainment value (and one great line). Sudden Death is about a notch above Passenger 57 and a notch below Under Siege (though it certainly has a better leading man than that latter film, which is mostly buoyed by Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey’s work as the villains).

Van Damme fills the lone cop Bruce Willis role as Ex-fireman Darren McCord, who is working security at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena during the Stanley Cup Finals. He’s scored some points with his kids by getting them into the game, but this has also unfortunately put them in the very location being held up by terrorists, led by Ex-CIA agent Joshua Foss (the late Powers Boothe). Highlights of the film include Boothe’s work and a fight between McCord and a thug dressed as a penguin mascot.

2) JCVD

It’s rare that an actor plays a fictional version of themself, but it does happen, and it’s usually to comedic effect. Neil Patrick Harris did it thrice in the Harold & Kumar movies, Keanu Reeves did it in Always Be My Maybe, Nicolas Cage did it in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, just about every working comedy movie star did it in This Is the End, and so on. But all of those were comedic actors, whereas Van Damme is, of course, an action star.

Yet he did it in JCVD, and the result is his best performance to date. He pokes fun at his own dwindling star power, he gets to show off more acting chops than he was ever allowed to before, and he manages to get some butt-kicking in, too. Like with The Expendables 2, it was a smart performance by Van Damme that showed he always was the opposite of Steven Seagal: an action star who was actually willing to toy with his status as an action star. Only Robert Rodriguez managed to ever get that out of Seagal for Machete, and even then it showed someone with less range than JCVD.

Stream JCVD on Prime Video.

1) Nowhere to Run

A greatly underrated ’90s action minor classic, Nowhere to Run came out when Van Damme was at his peak. And, while it did well at the box office, it seems to have been forgotten compared to the two movies that bookend it on his filmography: Universal Soldier and Hard Target.

This is one of the less bombastic Van Damme vehicles. It’s really the story of a man finding himself pulled into the life of a family grieving the loss of its patriarch. He’s an escaped convict but one with a good heart, a man capable of violence who nonetheless actively chooses to distance himself from it. As Sam Gillen, Van Damme shows off his ability to turn a complicated protagonist into someone very much relatable and likable. Nowhere to Run is a treat, quite possibly Van Damme’s best movie of the ’90s outside the aforementioned Universal Soldier and Hard Target.

Stream Nowhere to Run on fuboTV.

Which Jean-Claude Van Damme movie do you think doesn’t get enough love? Let us know in the comments.

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