After making several violent Hong Kong action films in the style that's come to be known as heroic bloodshed, Ringo Lam came to Hollywood to make his first American film with Belgian martial arts star Jean-Claude Van Damme. MAXIMUM RISK, like Van Damme's previous DOUBLE IMPACT, is the story of twin brothers. Unlike the earlier film--in which he played brothers with contrasting characters--here he's a French policeman, Alain Moreau, who takes on the identity of his dead brother, Mikhail. They were separated at birth when their mother, Chantal, played by veteran French film actress Stephane Audran, gave one up for adoption to a Russian diplomat. He grew up to become a member of the new Russian Mafia operating out of the Little Odessa section of New York City. When Mikhail is murdered in France after a wild chase through the streets, Alain goes to New York, where he's assumed to be Mikhail by everyone from the local Russian crime boss to his brother's beautiful girlfriend, Alex (Natasha Henstridge) Working with a seemingly unlimited budget for car crashes, Lam stages the action scenes with a kinetic flair and smartly knits them together with the help of sharp editing by Bill Pankow.
In Double Impact, we suffered the agony of two Jean-Claude Van Dammes for the entire movie. Here, thankfully, his twin gets bumped off in the opening few minutes. It's still hard work, but at least in the hands of Hong Kong director Ringo Lam (City on Fire) there are plenty of tremendous action set pieces to relish as Van Damme takes on the might of the Russian Mafia with the help of his late sibling's girlfriend (Natasha Henstridge from Species). French stars Jean-Hugues Anglade and Stéphane Audran are largely wasted, however.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Standard action-film clichés are well orchestrated in this predictable fast-paced nonsense.
Variety
"...It's a visceral delight....[A] full-tilt genre boogie..."
Radio Times
