John Woo directs Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lance Henriksen and Yancy Butler in this action thriller where a squad of mercenaries are hunting the homeless in New Orleans for sport.

A celebration of everything unique and everything naff about JCVD (though I don’t actually remember him doing his trademark splits here). He surfs a motorbike blasting a gun, flies through a warehouse of Mardi Gras floats with a shotgun in his hand, bites the rattle off a snake. An orgy of petrol, bullets and confetti. Easily his best movie. Woo’s first Hollywood studio project might have been forged under fire (Sam Raimi was hired as a substitute director on location and permanently poised to takeover if the suits lost faith in the master, the edit was taken over from him by the star) but the second half is brimming with the hyper-stylised high octane action you’d expect. It benefits from a memorable villain in Henriksen and in general has some amusing OTT swagger to it. A Friday Night Highlight.

8

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