ENTERTAINMENT

This Week: Hard Target

IT SOUNDED LIKE A RECIPE FOR ‘box-office magic: take a cult-favourite action star, devoid of talent but fun to watch; add two smartly dressed villains with attitude; concoct a plot by mixing equal parts of Rambo: First Blood and The Most Dangerous Game (which you may remember from your junior high English textbook); then let the whole mess

bake in the mildly demented mind of a cult favourite action director from Hong Kong until eighteen million dollars miraculously turns into a movie. Serve slightly overpriced at seven-fifty a head with a side-order of stale, overpriced popcorn. Makes a fortune. Sounds like typical, cynical Hollywood thinking, right up to the part about the

director. And the typical, cynical movie critics did what was expected of them: they trashed it. David Gilmour of the CBC Primetime News insulted the star. Skinny and Egghead gave it a major thumbs-down. And let’s not even think about those two yuppie morons from The Movie Show. You know, the ones who read their arguments froma cue card? So, not being your typical critic, | went out and thoroughly enjoyed myself. And we know why, don’t we...? That's right, because | absolutely love awful movies!

Hard Target is the first Hollywood film by James Woo and, as you may have guessedfrom the above ranting, it’s not exactly Shakespeare. The plot is simple: There's these two Bad Guys. They have this great little business going. They hire out-of- work, down-on-their-luck Vietnam Veterans and promise them lots of money. But since they are Bad Guys, there is one catch: the Vets are being hired to play the fox for a Wealthy Businessman’s hunting pleasure. They've just set up shop in New Orleans, where the copsare on strike. And that’s when they cross the path of Chance Boudreaux.

Boudreaux is a local bum, played with talentless flair by Jean-Claude van Damme. Our short, baby-faced hero with brains of steel is hired by the Girl (Yancy Butler, recently unemployed after Mann and Machine flopped like a sumo wrestler on Prosac) to help her track down her father, who is (uh-

Rock the boat this summer.

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Only those talented entertainers who are able to represent the flavour of the unique Atlantic Canadian culture or those who can entertain a deck full of children need apply for this exciting job! Candidates must have artistic experience and be at least 19 years old. Flexibility of being able to perform for both children and adult groups is desired; preference will be given to one and two member groups.

So if you think you've got what it takes and would like to spend your summer sailing the seas with Marine Atlantic, please call Carol O'Reilly, Director of Entertainment at (506) 851-3641 to schedule an appointment, as auditions will be held by appointment only.

Audition Schedule:

18,19 February St. John’s - Arts and Culture Centre (Basement Theatre)

23 February Sydney - McKnight Theatre

2, 3 March Halifax - 1678 Barrington St. (3rd floor)

16 March Saint John - Saint John High School

30 March Corner Brook - Arts and Culture Centre

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Marine Attantic Marine Attantique

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|___X.press march eighth 1994 page 14 |

oh) aretired Veteran. Oh No! What if, before the heroes find him, he gets recruited by...

Did you hear a gunshot?

Yessir, just before the Good Guys track him down, the Girl's Dad gets recruited and killed by the Bad Guy's henchmen. His death is made to look like an accident, but when Chance investigates, he finds evidence of foul play. When Chance, the Girl, and the only on-duty cop in town arrive at the recruitment office, they find a still- dripping corpse in a car out front.and get attacked by the Bad Guy's Henchmen, and the chase begins.

At this point, at least halfway into the movie, that plot is thrown out the window and fun ensues as Chance and the Girl are pursued across miles and miles of bayou by the Bad Guy

David Gilmour of the CBC Primetime News insulted the star. Skinny and Egghead gave it a major thumbs-down. And let’s not even think about those two yuppie morons from The Movie Show.

andawhole army of Wealthy Businessmen. They eventually meet Wilford Brimley and blow up a lot of old Mardi Gras floats. And then the

credits roll.

Okay, so | lied. It is Shakespeare.

The Technical Stuff: This is a pretty good action movie with all the horrible flaws that genre requires. The first flaw is lousy acting. The three major stars, van Damme. Butler, and Lance Henriksen, have two thing: in common. The first is that their best roles were as androids in other films. Van Damme played one in his best movie, Universal Soldier Butler played a shapely female android in < short-lived T.V. show called Mann anc Machine. As for Henriksen, who has latel) taken to playing a lot of B-movie actior villains, he is most famous for his role a: the ‘artificial person’ Bishop in Aliens. Th second common denominator is that they ar: all still playing those characters. But thi nod for worst actor in the whole film goes t Wilford Brimley, the old guy in the oatmez commercials. He plays Chance’s uncle, an does easily the worst job of his entir career. He's hilarious! First, you laugh a continued on next pag’