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Lionheart
(also known as Wrong Bet)
Directed by Sheldon Lettich, 1990
The film opens
with Van Damme's brother being set on fire by drug
dealers, but whether he was a dealer himself or merely a
user — or, for that matter, why he was attacked by this
gang — is never explained.
Van Damme is in North Africa serving the last six months
of a hitch in the French Foreign Legion when he gets word
of the incident, so he goes AWOL — we aren't supposed to
care since the Legion seems to be full of nothing but
sadistic boneheads, anyway — and stows away on a steamer
headed for America.
Once he gets near New York harbor, he jumps ship and tries
to come up with some way to get enough money to head for
California. Fortuitously, he comes into contact with a
jive-talking illicit-street-fight promoter (Harrison
Page). Eventually, he links Van Damme up with a beautiful,
sadistic organizer (Deborah Rennard) of no-holds-barred,
no-rules, bare-knuckle fights that secretly entertain the
decadent rich across the country.
The minute he makes it to Los Angeles, Van Damme looks up
his brother — but he's too late. And since the brother's
murderers are in police custody, a revenge plot is out. So
Van Damme is soon kicking the teeth out of various
contenders — ranging from a Scotsman in a kilt to a
long-haired surfer — earning money to help keep bill
collectors away from the door of his widowed sister-in-law
(Lisa Pelikan) and her young daughter.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Legion has sent two lunkheads to
bring him in, and it isn't long before they link up with
Rennard.
Worse, Van Damme is suffering silently from broken ribs
when he's booked to fight a virtual giant, named Attila.
Will Van Damme win, or will he be splattered all over the
pavement? If you have to ask that, maybe you've been
kicked in the head a few too many times. |
Videoclip:
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