The Hard Corps

Year: 2006

Actors: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Vivica A. Fox, Peter Bryant, Adrian Holmes

Duration: 110 min

Phillip Sauvage (Jean-Claude van Damme) is a man who has been dealt a hard deck of cards in life. Having suffered under savage fighting conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Al-Qaida takes children as hostages and blows them to bits, Sauvage had to take some time off in the psych ward in a VA Hospital. Little does he know that this will come back to haunt him, but under the deception of a ruthless detective, Detective Teague (Ron Bottitta), who himself has some problems with cavorting with the wrong men.But Sauvage, in spite of his previous bouts with PTSD, which he experiences while first "guarding" the main hero of the film, philanthropist and boxer Wayne Barclay (Razaaq Adoti). While in a nightclub which Barclay goes to for entertainment, Sauvage experiences one of the symptoms of PTSD...flashbacks...to the drop of the pulsating lights and pounding music. But never one to let his illness get the most of him, Sauvage turns it all around and uses his weapon to protect Barclay when a load of drive-by shooters tries to take Barclay's life outside the nightclub.Sauvage attends a funeral with the boxing hero and his sister, Tamara Barclay (Vivica A. Fox), and it is at this point that the boxer and his sister ask Sauvage to work for them in protecting their lives. But Detective Teague interrupts the interview and takes Sauvage in via handcuffs for discharge of weapons in public without a permit. The Barclays can't believe the charges, but Wayne becomes a bit skeptical about Sauvage and his intentions when Detective Teague takes him in and explains that Sauvage was in a psych ward and massacred a bunch of kids. Wayne holds all of this in until everything breaks when he is supposed to meet with a politician and Sauvage spots a potential suspect in the crowd. Wayne calls Sauvage a schizo psycho who was locked up in a psych ward and this is the turning point when they decide to spar together. Not a friendly match, Sauvage is quite good with his fists. He asks Wayne who said this about him but Wayne does not yet trust him enough, as his image was destroyed at the politician meeting when they had to clear the buliding and some people got trampled a bit (no one was seriously injured though).It's not until the man Simcoe (Ron Selmour), who Sauvage suspected as wanting to kill Wayne, goes into a bathroom with some of his cronies that we learn that he really is wanting to kill Wayne and Tamara. They attempt to kill Wayne's sister while they are sparring and Sauvage and Wayne are taken to a local hospital where Detective Teague happens to be there. But Teague knows a little too much and this is when Wayne's benefit of the doubt turns to appreciate Sauvage. Sauvage confesses in the car with Wayne that he was inpatient in a VA Hospital for PTSD, for decompressing, he says. This much is true. But he also recounts the school massacre for Wayne, which he was not able to tell Tamara. Sauvage explains in gory detail of how Al-Qaida was using a child as hostage and then had explosives wrapped around his waist, and ended up annhilating a group of schoolchildren in Iraq. It wasn't Sauvage who was doing the massacring. True to Al-Qaida techniques, the viewer can see the harsh realities of war that even the Viet Cong used back during Vietnam.Wayne continues to employ Sauvage and one day when Wayne comes to his girlfriend's house he finds her at gunpoint with Detective Teague challenging him. Knowing that Sauvage is a stable man in spite of his previous experiences, and knowing that he is trustworthy, he hopes for the best. That's when Sauvage and his men come through and rescue Wayne of his predicament.But then the new crew must go to where it all started...the rap music mogul who wants to assassinate Wayne and the mammoth mansion in which he lives. Will true heroes prevail, or will evil get the best of the good guys? They take in some heavy gunfire and wounds near the end...Van Damme, like the character Sauvage in the film, suffers from mental illness in real life, but, and like the character in the film, does not let it get in the way of getting things done and in the way of his career.

Genre: Action   Thriller