`Maximum Risk' offers audience minimum plot

---

by Mary Summers

---

Been having testosterone deficiencies lately? Is your brain drained of all cognitive capabilities? Looking for some action? May I recommend to you Maximum Risk, starring Jean Claude Van Damme?

This is a movie that has it all: fight scenes, twins separated at birth, weeping mothers, fight scenes, gratuitous sex, chase scenes, gratuitous cleavage, fight scenes, international intrigue, fight scenes, naked flabby old guys, oodles of swinging pig carcasses and, of course, the bread-and-butter of any action-adventure movie: fight scenes.

Maximum Risk is the story of Alain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a French secret service agent whose crime-solving interest is piqued by the death of a mysterious and studly fellow who looks just like him.

Intrigued, Alain investigates and finds that the guy is his long-lost twin brother he never knew he had. Not yet satisfied, he wonders, "Why would zeese guys vant to keel my brozair?" His quest takes him to New York City, his adopted brother's hometown. There he finds that his brother Mikhail had become dangerously involved with the Russian Mafia and corrupt FBI agents, as well as romantically involved with the National Spokesmodel for American Bimbos.

It is lucky Alain ran into this chick, played by actress Natasha Henstridge because she turns out to be the willing supplier of gratuitous sex and cleavage.

Alain disposes of all the bad guys, both Russian and American, by using just a teeny-weeny bit of guile and a whole lot of his "Incredible Hulk"-ish strength. He suffers hardly a scratch, though he encounters several fiery explosions, rainstorms of automatic weapon fire, head-on car accidents and a whole gang of big, ugly, bald Russian thugs.

What really made him my hero, though, and truly a man of Olympic-caliber greatness, was the fact that in the end he gets together with his murdered brother's hottie -- not that she played hard-to-get.

All further crises averted, the two walk off into what I can only suppose is an endless marital bliss of scampering through cobblestone streets in three-inch heels.

Unfortunately, this movie lacks depth of plot and hence highlights a glaring absence of the development of the hero's and heroine's characters. The substitute for any real plot is a set of loosely strung together actions -- suspense and mystery were never even attempted. We are not told what Mikhail's disagreement with the Russian Mafia actually entailed. Had this been revealed, an entirely interesting plot may have unfolded, and I am sure that almost all of the fight and sex scenes could have been preserved and possibly rendered more convincing.

I am a fan of action-adventure movies; however, it is the development of plot and character that make a movie really work. The viewer must be able to identify with the characters and the motives behind the characters' actions. This is what separates good action-adventure movies like True Lies , The Fugitive and In the Line of Fire from the rest. Although Maximum Risk contains some amazing scenes -- like one in which Van Damme and a big Russian mobster, both clad in only towels, fight fiercely for about five minutes while neither loses his towel -- it has about as much real meat as a Chicken McNugget.

Save your five bucks. You get the same amount of mystery and suspense by watching Scooby Doo and the same romantic drama from a Taster's Choice commercial.

This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the September 27, 1996 issue.

Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved.
This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of:
The Rice Thresher, Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston, TX 77005-1892, USA.