This movie has a huge brawl in a Russian Bath House.

A room full of fat, sweaty, half-naked men, and no half-naked women.

Did they not get the memo?

Tonight, I went to the latest Jean-Claude-Van-Damme film, Maximum Risk. This was a bad thing, and I can only hope that the children will learn from my example.

The film opened with the cheeriest scene of the movie, Jean-Claude-Whatchamacallit diving into a car and dying. Finally, I thought, a film with hope, with vision, with taste! But no, it's just a film with two Van Dammies. Didn't he do this before?

The basic plot is, well, it's sorta, well, I'm not quite sure. There was a Russian mob, they were in New York, then France, there was the FBI, and there was a babe.

Oh the babe. Natasha Henstridge from Species. Rest assured she's not about to become Natasha Henstridge from Maximum Risk. She was great in Species because she didn't say much and she spent the movie naked. This time she talks and pretty much stays clothed.

Bummer. But she's still a babe. She rode in my car once, honest. I gave her two Altoids. She wanted really fresh breath.

By the way, does anyone have any idea what the title is supposed to mean? If you do, please email me at owner-selfmade@lungfish.com

No, really, I wanna know.

Anyway, back to the movie. It's.. well, it's silly. The writing is atrocious, the direction sloppy and unintelligible. It reminded me a lot of films me and Brumfield would make on his dad's Betamax camera when we were 10. Except they had bigger explosions and one scene with a woman's breast, we never had any girl actresses. We did have guy actresses, but that's another story.

See, when we were 10, I'd hand the camera to Brumfield and say "OK, keep shooting until I scratch my nose." Then he'd turn the camera on and I'd mumble through a line and eventually just scratch my nose to cut the shot. Then I'd take the camera and he'd make up a line which would end whenever he picked up the pencil. If he remembered to pick up the pencil. We have a lot of footage of Brumfield staring at the camera and finally just yelling, "Cut already!"

That's what it felt like. "Natasha, in this shot, uh.. say 'But why are they trying to kill us!' and we'll cut it, got that? Good. Action!"

"But why are they trying to kill us!"

"Cut! Great. OK, uhm.. Jean, say 'I don't know, but I will stop them.' OK? Does that sound good? Cool. Action!"

You get the idea.

So that's bad. Then there's the old "Gosh, just how many bullets does he have in that six-shooter anyway?" gag. And the "Jean gives us a teary monotone monologue." bit. Come on, we know he can't act, why waste our time? Hit somebody!

There is one character that repeatedly comes out of nowhere to save their butts. No reason, just lucky. And the obligatory death of someone important, except he's not really important, he came out of nowhere, and quite frankly, we're glad he's dead.

There's a high speed chase in France. Excuse me, but have you seen these French cars? Watching Herbie the Love Bug tear across streets at all of ten miles an hour is about as exciting as Nuns playing Canasta. And almost as funny.

They blow things up, everything is strictly by the book, and utterly predictable.

And the movie ends with the chick going to meet the mother. Excuse me, but does ma know you've porked both of her identical twin sons? Just curious. Hey, which one was better? I mean, are they IDENTICAL?

So all told, the movie rounds up a meager 1 1/8 Babylon. It only gets that much because Natasha is a total babe, and when she stands still and doesn't say anything, she's awful purty to look at.

Editor's Note:

The above reference to Nuns playing Canasta was meant in jest and was not meant as an insult to the Nun profession. Honest. We think Nuns are cool.