VAN DAMME IS AT HIS BEST

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 16, 1993                   TAG: 9301160277
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
VAN DAMME IS AT HIS BEST
"Nowhere To Run" is Jean-Claude Van Damme's best movie to date. No, that's not meant sarcastically. This is a perfectly acceptable little formula action picture built on familiar Hollywood stereotypes and an off-the-shelf plot.
In the opening scenes, copied from "48 HRS," Sam (Van Damme) escapes from a prison bus. He was serving time for an armed robbery that he didn't actually do, but that's neither here nor there. Before long, he's camped out in scenic rural Montana, right next to a farm owned by Clydie (Rosanna Arquette), a widow lady.
She and her two kids, Brie and Cheddar . . . actually Brie and Mookie (Tiffany Taubman and Kieran Culkin), are being threatened by the oily land developer, Hale (Joss Ackland), and his evil henchman, Mr. Dunston (Ted Levine). They're so villainous that if they had mustaches, they'd twirl them. Guess who'll come to the rescue?
From that premise you can predict every important development in the script that high-powered writer Joe Eszterhas and two accomplices probably knocked off in an afternoon. Director Robert Harmon ("The Hitcher") handles the action sequences with some interesting twists. If he lets the pace drag between them, the countryside is attractive and so are the leads.
In the end, "Nowhere To Run" makes a virtue of its familiarity.
Nowhere To Run: ***
A Columbia release playing at the Valley View Mall 6 and Salem Valley 8. Rated R for violence, nudity, sexual content, strong language. 92 min.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB