Tuesday's Overlooked Movie: Legionnaire

(This post originally appeared in different form on December 30, 2008.)

I’ve always liked Jean-Claude van Damme’s movies, and I’m not sure how we missed this one when it came out ten years ago. It’s right up my alley, with a plot like a yarn by Robert Carse or Georges Surdez in ADVENTURE or ARGOSY. Van Damme’s a boxer who doesn’t take a dive when he’s supposed to (do the boxing heroes of books and movies ever take a dive when they’re supposed to?), who winds up joining the French Foreign Legion to get away from the gangsters who are after him. There’s nothing here you haven’t seen in scores of cavalry Westerns and war movies, but I enjoyed it anyway.