SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

ivo-cobra8 Maximum Risk (1996) is honestly one of my favorite Van Damme movies. I used to own this movie on VHS was the first Van Damme movie I had on VHS. Until I throw it in the trash last year. So I bought this movie on Blu-ray. Van Damme plays completely different character than we know and It is pretty good. Natasha Henstridge is completely unknown actress in this movie and I like her a lot. I love this movie to death! It was one of the movies with Van Damme, I have grown up. I think Jean-Claude Van Damme is a great underrated actor and a great martial artists action star. Maximum Risk (1996)was the movie that my mom bought me on VHS tape when I was a child. I bagged her for this movie, she fulfilled my wish and I got the tape. I kept watching it and I love this action movie. In my opinion it is a huge improvement over Sudden Death. This was Van Damme's serious role I have ever saw. His character Alain Moreau is serious. He is a French cop who was in a military.Jean-Claude Van Damme is in his seriously double role again as Mikhail Suverov and Alain Moreau. In the opening scene we see Van Damme been chased by these guys, one of them is Paul Ben-Victor, the two guys and nice foot chase Van Damme's character jumps from the building on the balcony that is hanged in front another building and hangs him self on the fence, tries to move him self up but the balcony breaks down and Van Damme falls down. Than he runs steals some motorcycle and crashes and falls in to another car's windshield, his character is dead. But than we see again Van Damme, Alain is at a funeral that is being held for a fellow cop, when Alain's partner Sebastien (Jean-Hugues Anglade) shows up, and requests for his presence at a crime scene. When they arrive, Sebastien shows Alain a dead body of someone that looks exactly like him. They discover that his name was Mikhail Suvorov, who was born on exactly the same day Alain was. As it turns out, Mikhail is the twin brother Alain never knew he had.So now Alain traces his brother's steps back to New York City, Alain travels to New York City to find more about his brother and he discovers that Mikhail was a member of the Russian Mafia, who was chased down and killed when he attempted to get out. Of course, now Alain is mistaken for Mikhail, who was also mixed up in a series of affairs concerning the FBI and the Russian mafia. With his only real ally being Mikhail's fiancé Alex Bartlett (Natasha Henstridge), Alain sets out to avenge his brother's death, which is complicated not only by the Mafia, but by two corrupt FBI agents. You have nice martial arts in here, great action sequences. Realistic gun shots fire, like Van Damme pulls his gun on the van and fire at the assailant, killing the man with one shot. The van explodes while Van Damme saves his partner's life and the bad guy Ivan Dzasokhov (Zach Grenier) get's killed. I liked the ending scene where Van Damme fight's off the henchman rogue FBI agent Paul Ben-Victor who try's to kill him with a chainsaw. That scene was a bad ass.Ringo Lam did made a great job directing Maximum Risk with Van Damme, it was their first movie working together. In the future they worked together in Replicant (2001) another Van Damme twins movie in which a retired FBI Agent is chasing a serial killer (Van Damme) with the help of his clone. I always liked that movie, but I love this one so much better! And In Hell (2003) another different prison movie with Van Damme in it. I think they both did a solid job directing and filming this martial arts action flick! Natasha Henstridge was really a beautiful girl as Mikael's girlfriend, I been a fan of here. I absolutely loved her in Species and Ghosts of Mars. I always watched Species the original movie, but I have never watched the sequels. Natasha Henstridge is very gorgeous sexy and beautiful in this movie.Maximum Risk is the 1996 action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Alain Moreau, a cop working in Nice, France, who discovers that a body at murder scene is the twin brother he never knew he had. Upon further investigation, Alain finds out that his twin was part of the Russian mafia and had a fiancée (Natasha Henstridge) and then finds himself on the run from the mobsters when he's mistaken for his brother. The film was helmed by Hong Kong director Ringo Lam, who would later collaborate with Van Damme for 2001's Replicant and 2003's In Hell. That is the basic plot. I am giving this movie a 10, of one of my all time favorite Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

jonathanruano "Maximum Risk" would have been a good picture, except that there were so many fight scenes and shoot outs, so much vandalism, and so many explosions that they almost crowded out the film's human characters. And this is the main flaw of "Maximum Risk": it should have been about its human characters. The story of Alain Moreau's (Jean Claude Van Damme) search for the people who killed his brother Mikhail Suvurov had the makings of a good film and maybe even a great film, as British director Mike Hodges proved when he directed Michael Caine in Get Carter (1974). Moreover, this film also makes it clear that Alain did not know he had a brother, until he learnt of Mikhail's premature and violent death -- and this was another opening that the filmmakers of "Maximum Risk" should have exploited more fully by writing better dialogue and better scenes for the actors and cutting back on the explosions and vandalism. Yet all of these opportunities were squandered because the filmmakers decided to dumb down this picture. Jean Claude Van Damme, for example, gets even fewer lines than the ones delivered by Natasha Henstridge (who plays Alain's love interest, Alex Minetti), even though he is supposed to be the protagonist in this picture.Now this film is not all bad. The set-up for this picture was good and I also liked the small twist two-thirds into the film, where we see a rare thing in a JCVD movie: Jean Claude Van Damme successfully making a cogent argument involving some sophisticated analysis. But the main strength of this picture has to be Natasha Henstridge's performance as the JCVD love interest, Alex Minetti. Henstridge may not have the best dialogue to work with, but she is able to imbue her lines with enough emotion and intensity to make her character seem plausible. She is probably the most interesting thing in this picture. Jean Claude Van Damme, by contrast, can do little more than reprise his bad boy (who always gets into fights and gets his face bruised) role from films like "Death Warrant," "Double Impact," and "Nowhere to Run." He is not doing anything new in this picture that he did not do far better in previous films and, what is more, we do not even see him do much of his choreographed karate either. Overall a disappointing film.5.4/10

Comeuppance Reviews Alain Moreau (Van Damme) is a French cop who just discovered he has a twin brother. His name was Mikhail Suverov and he worked for the Russian mob. To get to the truth about his life, he travels to New York City, specifically the Little Odessa area. While there he must fight gangsters, as well as double-dealing FBI agents. But just about everyone thinks he's Mikhail. Luckily his brother's girlfriend Alex (Henstridge) is along for the ride. Now Alain has to make it back to France in one piece, but not before causing some major Van Damage in the big apple! Maximum Risk is from the good old days when Van Damme movies went to the theater. Thus, it has a high-quality look and feel, and seems to have a decent budget behind it. It's nice to see the high production values used well by the great Ringo Lam, who would later team up with Van Damme again for Replicant and In Hell (2003).It must be in Van Damme's contract to be in movies where he plays two roles. Most actors never get this chance, but Van Damme has. FIVE times. The movies being Double Impact (1991), Maximum Risk, Replicant (2001), Timecop (1994) and The Order (2001). Just why he feels there aren't enough Van Dammes currently on earth, outside of ego, has yet to be explained. To further emphasize his "double" life, here, in Maximum Risk, Van Damme seeing his reflection is a theme throughout the movie. Glasses, windows, picture frames, and of course mirrors are all employed for psychological purposes. But really this movie is an entertaining thriller that is palatable for general audiences. You don't have to be a Van Damme or martial arts freak to enjoy Maximum Risk.Say what you will about him, but Van Damme has more emotion than Chuck Norris. Or Don "The Dragon" Wilson. Speaking of Wilson, just as his Bloodfist movies are all 80 minutes, it seems another contract demand of Van Damme is that his movies be at least 100 minutes. Maximum Risk is no exception, so naturally there's some filler, but not much. And a classic cliché is on display: the "wacky taxi driver" is on show once again, but at least this time he has a more substantial part to play than usual.Following another JCVD rule, there has to be a scene where he gets nude or semi-nude. Why, we don't know. Here it's the time-honored bathhouse fight, also seen in such movies as Red Heat (1988) and Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991). But at least there's some Natasha Henstridge nudity as well to right the ship. Henstridge, in only her second-ever movie role (after Species, 1995), looks great, and it's sad to see her end up in Scott Wiper crud like A Better Way to Die (2000), but hey, you gotta make a living.Maximum Risk is solid, undemanding entertainment seemingly made to make the careers of Van Damme and Ringo Lam go over well with larger audiences. Watching it today, it's classic 90's fun that's easy to like.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Paul Andrews Maximum Risk starts in the South of France where ex-Russian mobster Mikhail Suverov (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is killed in an accident while trying to escape from two FBI agents chasing him. The police become involved & detective Sebastien (Jean-Hugues Anglade) recognises Mikhail as his close friend & fellow cop Alain Moreau (Jean-Claude Van Damme), it quickly turns out that Mikhail & Alain were identical twins separated at birth. Wanting to know about his brother & why he was killed Alain follows a trail back to New York where he discovers his brother Mikhail was involved with Russian mobsters & a beautiful waitress named Alex Minetti (Natasha Henstridge), Alain also discovers the Russian mobsters want him dead not to mention the FBI who also want a piece of him...Making his American action film debut this run of the mill JCVD action film was directed by Ringo Lam & was the second time a famed Asian action film director made his American feature film debut with JCVD after John Woo made probably JCVD's best film Hard Target (1993) & JCVD would also star in Hark Tsui's first American film as well with the terrible Double Team (1997). Anyway, here the almost humourless script by Larry Ferguson feels like a collection of action film clichés loosely strung together with little regard for a plot, the narrative or the audience. There's the JCVD character who is not only a cop but also an ex-soldier just so he can really handle himself, there's evil mobsters who can't shoot straight, there's a pretty blonde woman who is entirely surplus to the plot & is included solely for her looks, there's various fights & chases, there's a 'big' tough bad guy who JCVD has to have a climatic showdown with towards the end, there's crooked FBI agents & not much of a plot to speak of. Most of Maximum Risk just feels like JCVD going from one fight to another on the basic pretence that they are after his twin brother & it just gets old very quickly & the whole plot is uninspiring, it's predictable, it's silly & it's throughly routine. I suppose it's watchable, there's nothing spectacularly wrong with it & it moves along at a decent pace but I just can't muster up much enthusiasm for it at all & I consider myself a JCVD fan. Maximum Risk was the second time JCVD played dual roles in a film the first being Double Impact (1991) where, like in Maximum Risk, he played identical twins & then he went on to play two roles in both Replicant (2001) & The Order (2001). Having said that his twin dies in the opening sequence so there are never two JCVD's on screen at once in Maximum Risk.I have to say that I didn't like the way Maximum Risk was shot at all, the fact I saw a pan and scan version rather than a full 2:35:1 widescreen edition didn't help but the camera angles are weird & they just don't capture the action that well, the length of shot is very short & the editing is just very bad & annoying as it makes it difficult so get a grip of what is going on & finally there's that horrible shaky camera syndrome which just adds to the general irritation. The action feels routine, the fights are alright but nothing special while the chases are ruined by being poorly shot & aren't much to begin with anyway. Also what does Lam have against plastic garden furniture? The amount of scenes in which he crashes cars into plastic chairs & tables outside cafés seems to be too numerous to be a coincidence.With a supposed budget of about $25,000,000 Maximum Risk really should have been better than this, I think it's a throughly routine & badly shot action flick that apart from one or two car chases & some expensive location work looks like it was a made-for-telly effort. The locations sound impressive having been shot in Paris, Canada & New York. The acting is poor, I think JCVD is terrible in this while all the Russian accents are unconvincing although at least Hanstridge is easy on the eyes & she goes topless briefly in one scene.Maximum Risk is one of JCVD's more routine efforts, I found it a really disappointing film that was badly shot & written. Having said that it passes the time & is nowhere near his worst although at the same time it's nowhere near his best. After several big hits like Universal Soldier (1992), Hard Target, Timecop (1994) & Sudden Death (1995) you can trace the demise of JCVD pretty much back to Maximum Risk.