“Hard Target” might feature some decent action sequences but the real problem is that the rest of the film is so poorly made that you can’t take any joy in watching the rest of the film and part of that is down to the obnoxious moviemaking techniques utilised by director John Woo (“Face/Off”).

In “Hard Target”, a woman named Natasha (Yancy Butler “Drop Zone”) hires a tough drifter named Chance (Jean-Claude Van Damme “Universal Soldier”, “JCVD”) in order to help find her father but the duo end up uncovering a murder-for-sport ring (it’s a bit like “The Running Man” but without any personality). The film slowly goes about its dull business before finally delivering a good shootout but after you’ve suffered through all the talky bits, will you really care how big the explosions are.

I’ve said before that Van Damme is a bad actor and lacks charisma but he’s done better films than this before. He needs to find more roles that play to his strengths and not to his weaknesses. The woman here also lacks charisma and is forgotten as soon as she leaves the screen. The villains aren’t particularly exciting and that is a shame as one of them is played by Lance Henriksen (“Aliens”), who can be very entertaining; the only one that is okay is the main henchman played by Arnold Vosloo (“The Mummy”).

“Hard Target” features dialog that makes watching paint dry seem like watching “Star Wars”, an unhealthy obsession with slow-motion effects (they use it during the most trivial of moments) and a terrible plot. Sure Van Damme shoots people while standing on top of a moving motorbike and sure there are some big explosions but when in every other scene the film is incredibly bland, you can’t get into any of it.