“Onerous Goal” stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as a martial arts grasp marine veteran employed as a bodyguard for a younger lady performed by Yancy Butler, who’s looking for her lacking father. What they uncover is that her father was killed by a personal membership led by a delectably evil Lance Henriksen, which has been looking human beings for the game of it. Fairly quickly, Van Damme is standing on prime of rushing bikes and taking pictures vehicles till they explode, such as you do.
Whereas the motorbike half was positively new, the DNA for “Onerous Goal” — and so many different films and TV exhibits that it is legitimately laborious to maintain rely — comes from a 1924 brief story and a film referred to as “The Most Harmful Recreation.” The unique story was written by Richard Connell, a novelist and Oscar-nominated screenwriter who additionally co-wrote the story for Frank Capra’s basic “Meet John Doe.”
It is the story of a world-famous hunter, Rainsford (Joel McCrea), who escapes a sinking ship and swims to an island the place a madman, Zaroff (Leslie Banks), hunts human beings for sport. Whereas Zaroff initially hopes Rainsford will be part of him as one of many hunters, Rainsford attracts the road at killing people as an alternative of animals and as an alternative is pressured to change into the hunted. Blood-curdling journey ensues.
This can be a story that shines a light-weight on the ethical hypocrisy of huge recreation looking, which was significantly widespread on the time, and the premise for hit movies just like the blockbuster epic “Dealer Horn,” a film with a lot racism and real-life demise and violence on digicam that it is legitimately troublesome to look at. (And “Dealer Horn” was nominated for Finest Image too. Yikes.) Anyway, it is an ingenious subversion, mixing old school derring-do with social commentary about classism and animal rights.
And within the a long time that adopted, it bought ripped off consistently.