John Woo movies are great to watch, though some are tougher to get through than others. His first North American effort, Hard Target, with Sam Raimi at his side to help if needed, could have been something really special if the film had a lead who could act.

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in the film, and his acting is bad. The excuse for his accent in this film is that he’s Cajun, and the film is set in Louisiana. But nothing can explain that horrible hair, not even the 90s. He plays rough and tumble Chance Boudreaux who agrees to help Nat (Yancy Butler) search the French Quarter for her missing homeless father.

What they discover is that Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen in a perfectly villainous performance, which allows him to far outshine Van Damme) is running a business, a riff on The Most Dangerous Game; the rich of the world are paying loads of cash to hunt veterans with no family connections for sport.

Chance is going to bring the whole thing down. And he’s going to go through all of Fouchon’s men, including Pik (Arnold Vosloo) to do it.

What follows is a slew of violence, not quite as balletic but definitely as heightened as we’ve come to expect from Woo, and a hilarious appearance by Wilford Brimley as Chance’s bow-and-arrow-toting Cajun uncle.

You get the dove shot, the two handguns, the slow motion, the dividing wall shot, and the sheer operatic nature of heightened violence that Woo has always been able to deliver. It’s entertaining enough, but Van Damme isn’t as good an actor as he thinks he is, and he should have left the editing to the professionals with a story that let Henriksen and Vosloo do more of the heavy lifting.

Of all Woo’s films that I’ve seen this one feels the shakiest. As his first North American feature with the studio looking over his shoulder maybe he felt a ridiculous amount of pressure. It definitely doesn’t flow as well as some of his other films, still, he really lets Henriksen go for it, and Lance’s performance is the one to watch in this film.

There are some really enjoyable sequences, Chance’s motorcycle stunt raised all manner of questions, the snake bit was hilarious, and say what you will about Van Damme’s acting abilities the man can kick.

Yancy Butler isn’t given enough to do, reduced to a damsel in distress, there’s a female police detective played by Kasi Lemmons who also seems to get the short shrift story and character-wise, but in the end, if you’re going in for a Van Damme movie, you’re getting what you want. If you’re going in for a John Woo film you’ll see glimmers of the director you love.