LIONHEART (AWOL: ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE; THE WRONG BET)
US, 1990, 105 minutes, Colour.
Jean Claude Van Damme, Harrison Page, Deborah Rennard, Lisa Pelikan, Brian Thompson.
Directed by Sheldon Lettich.
Jean Claude Van Damme made an impact from the mid-1980s. Lionheart was one of his earlier films. It was a collaboration with writer-director Sheldon Lettich with whom he made a number of films later.
Van Damme portrays a French Foreign Legionnaire who gets news of his brother’s brutal death. His brother had been involved in the drug trade in Los Angeles. He left a widow, played by Lisa Pelikan, and a son. As he goes absent without leave, he encounters a fight master in Paris, played by Harrison Page, who introduces him to the affluent world of illegal street fighting. The woman in charge, a femme fatale, is played by Deborah Rennard (popular in the 1980s for more than a hundred episodes of Dallas as J.R. Ewing’s secretary – and married to the director Paul Haggis, Crash, In the Valley of Elah, Million Dollar Baby).
The film has the human element as the legionnaire tracks down his sister-in-law and his nephew and tries to make it up to them with money from the fights. However, they are in danger and he protects them. He also does a number of bouts in Los Angeles culminating in a brutal fight which he ultimately wins (using kick-boxing techniques which he might have used at the beginning to save himself a great deal of pain).
The film is standard Van Damme material – a touch of humanity and sentiment along with a continued series of brutal fights.
1.The popularity of Jean Claude Van Damme? From the 1980s through the 1990s? Into the 21st century? His continuing popularity? His attempts at drama during the 1990s? Fans wanting him to stay with the action?
2.The Los Angeles backgrounds, the drug world and its brutality? The French Foreign Legion in Djibouti? The Paris sequences and the fights?
3.The succession of fights? The choreography of the fights? Their violence, brutality? Van Damme’s skills?
4.Lyon as a character, personality, his being in the Foreign Legion, AWOL, the confrontation with the authorities? Getting to France, on the boat, working, the confrontation with the master? In Paris, the fights, getting the money? Teaming up with Joshua? Meeting Cynthia and Russell? The arranged fights? The money? His wanting to go to Los Angeles, to meet with Helene? Her rejection of him? Her anger that he did not come to his brother’s help? His dying brother’s calling out for him?
5.Los Angeles, the drug dealers, the pursuit by the Foreign Legion? Cynthia and the arrangements, the fights, her wealthy clients? Her attitude towards Lyon, jealousy, watching him with his nephew?
6.The set-up for the fight with Atilla, Joshua and his betting? Cynthia wanting Lyon to lose? The fight, Joshua’s advice, the information about the betting? His standing on his feet, the kick-boxing, winning? Cynthia and her being called back into the house to pay her debts?
7.The happy ending? Joshua and his previously giving the money to Helene? The reconciliation, Lyon as part of the family?
8.The blend of Van Damme action with a sentiment story?
