An ex-French soldier begins participating in underground street fights to make money for his brother’s family.
I’ve been a Jean-Claude Van Damme fan ever since I first saw him in the 1991 action flick, “Double Impact.” While the movie may not have resonated with everyone, I consider it Van Damme’s best work. It has action, adventure, humor, exotic locales, and plenty of kick-ass action with not just one Van Damme, but two. The film never attempts to be more than it is—an entertaining, over-the-top spectacle—and that’s precisely where its charm lies.
“Lionheart,” on the other hand, adopts a far more serious tone. Van Damme genuinely looks subdued, almost detached for the entire movie. Whether this was a directorial choice or not, he feels completely out of place with the rest of the supporting cast, who, for the most part, deliver earnest performances. It looks as if he had to make this movie out of obligation and not passion, resulting in lackluster engagement with both the script and his co-stars. In most of his other films, he is way more animated. Here, he has zero energy and only briefly comes to life during his fight scenes.
Van Damme plays Lyon Gaultier, a French Foreign Legion soldier stationed in Djibouti, East Africa. He receives word from his sister-in-law Hélène (Lisa Pelikan), that his brother Francois (Ash Adams) was set on fire during a drug deal gone bad, and is lying in the hopsital calling out his name in agony. He pleads with his Legion Commander to let him go so he can visit Francois before he passes away, but his request is denied. Lyon then escapes the Legion and makes his way across the desert until he reaches the coast. There, he finds work aboard a tramp steamer headed for the United States.
Once in New York, he needs to make his way to Los Angeles, but with no money, he doesn’t know how. Lyon comes across an illegal street fight being run by a tramp named Joshua Eldridge (Harrison Page). He volunteers for the next fight and easily defeats his opponent. Impressed, Joshua tells him that he can make good money fighting. Lyon is initially hesitant, explaining that he needs to get to Los Angeles, and Joshua offers to help him get to L.A., picking up fights along the way.
When they eventually arrive in Los Angeles, Hélène informs Lyon that Francois has already passed away and she wants nothing to do with him. He learns that she has a young daughter, Nicole (Ashley Johnson), and they have incurred a huge stack of unpaid medical bills, and that they are on the verge of being evicted from their apartment, so he agrees to let Joshua line up new fights so he can help them out financially. But just when things start to look up, he encounters two Legionnaires who were sent after him. Now he must try to figure out a way to stay in L.A. to take care of his new family before he is taken back to East Africa.
Van Damme’s performance remains unconvincing throughout. His delivery is flat, his emotional range limited, and the fight scenes—typically a highlight in his movies—fail to excite. Who knows, maybe he was going through a difficult time in his personal life; these things sometimes happen, but “Lionheart” stands out as one of Van Damme’s least memorable projects. I wouldn’t recommend it, not even to the most hardened Van Damme aficionado.
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