Lionheart Movie Download

9 / 10

Crowd-pleasing early Van Damme effort
A simplistic but effective early film from Van Damme, his fourth starring role after BLOODSPORT, CYBORG, and KICKBOXER. While some of the scenes and music appear to have been ripped off from ROCKY, this is still engaging viewing, with interesting acting and some great fight scenes to break up the rather soppy melodrama of the plot.

Van Damme is definitely in his prime in this film, and it shows as he kicks, punches and elbows his way through a series of increasingly sadistic baddies in the ring. While his accent may be thick and his words not always in the right order, Van Damme still manages to inject some charm and charisma in the scenes he shares with his brother’s family. Harrison Page is also surprisingly effective in a role as a down at heel, crippled fight veteran, and the viewer really warms to him by the end of the film. The female villain is nicely villainous, while Brian Thompson puts in another loathsome performance and gets a well-deserved kick to the face at the end of the film.

The fights themselves are fun and outlandish, with plenty of martial arts moves and agile stunts. Beginning underneath a bridge, they move to a car park, a deserted warehouse, a squash court, and even a half-filled swimming pool. The enemies themselves are hilarious parodies, including an animalistic Scotsman who jabs his finger into Van Damme’s eyes.

However it’s the final fight which really delivers the groceries, as it were. Van Damme, who has a broken rib, is forced to take on Attila, a maniac who feels no pain and toys with his opponents before breaking them in half. He’s also virtually indestructible. We witness Van Damme being beaten to a pulp (Page tells him “he’s gonna kill your ass, man, he’s gonna kill your ass!”) over and over again, until the audience begin to clap, the music builds and he literally kicks the living daylights out of Attila at the end, as everyone cheers and claps. This final bit is really great and worth waiting for, just like the final fight in KICKBOXER. Thus A.W.O.L. is something of a crowd-pleaser. I’m not ashamed to say that it’s the only Van Damme that makes me cry, right at the end, and I’m no sentimentalist; something about Page’s character in particular is completely moving.Read More