Nowhere to Run

After Double Impact and Universal Soldier it is hard to imagine that Van Damme could continue the streak, after all up until this point he has not been able to string together consecutive strong movies. Much to my disbelief Nowhere to Run, makes it three; we have a streak ladies and gentlemen. What is interesting about this film is that it also continues Van Damme’s run of original story ideas, well at least for him. He's been a genetic experiment, a set of twins, even a world renown fighter; this time he is an escaped convict trying to start over. And believe it or not he is actually guilty. Van Damme plays the role of Sam Gillen an imprisoned bank robber who is released early when his partner, who did not get caught, helps him escape during a prison transfer. His partner, Anthony Starke, is killed during the escape leaving Gillen with all the money they stole from the bank. Gillen ends up making his way onto the property of a widowed mother of two young children, Clydie Anderson, played by Rosanna Arquette. Gillen is quickly found on the property by Clydie’s son, Mookie, played by Kieran Culkin, yeah Macauly’s younger brother. Gillen is welcomed into the family shortly there after when he comes to their aide as a bunch of thugs attacked them. Clydie’s property is in the middle of a major land development that is under way and she does not want to sell. Van Damme ends up staying with the family and helping them hold onto their property.

Nowhere to Run is more about Gillen’s relationship to his newly adopted family and his attempt to put his past behind him than it is his ability to kick major booty. However there were a couple of pretty good action sequences including the final fight, which is one of the better fight scenes in his first seven movies. This is worth mentioning because again in stead of going out and getting a fighter to play the main baddie the movie enlisted the services of an actor, Ted Levine who played Mr. Dunston. In the past this has resulted in a very weak fight scene for a movie climax. However in this film, Director Robert Harmon was able to make the fight work. Again because Levine is not a professional fighter he does not utilize much kicking, but his punches were varied and he made use of environmental weapons such as a pick fork and a windows. The fight also consisted of a lot of rolling around and takeling. So instead of Van Damme uses his martial arts he just fought, which resulted in the final fight scene being just that a good old fashioned knock down drag out fight. In the end Van Damme wins, but still gets hauled off to prison. This type of ending was teased in Lionheart, but the directoe pulled back and went for the cheesy happy ending. I give Harmon credit for having the guts to actually have Van Damme the criminal, no matter how likable he is, get arrested. Good move.