Plot
A former New Orleans cop Jack Robideaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) arrives with his pet rabbit in Columbus, New Mexico to take a job with the border patrol, and working with Captain Ramona García (Natalie J. Robb).
At the moment, the border patrol is up against a highly dangerous drug smuggling operation, in which the smugglers are funneling illegal immigrants and bricks of heroin through the porous defenses of the Mexico US border. Migrants are randomly outfitted with C4 vests, so any border patrol agent who interferes might get blown up.
As it turns out, the smugglers are a rogue special forces unit led by Benjamin Meyers (Stephen Lord) and his right-hand man Karp (Scott Adkins), who have taken over all of the smuggling operations in the area by killing major drug kingpins Félix Néstor (Daniel Perrone) and Benito Ortiz (Luis Algar).
Jack and his partner Billy Pawnell (Gary McDonald) have their work cut out for them in trying to bring down Meyers and his operation. Myers and his henchmen take over and rig a missionary bus to smuggle drugs, but Jack and Billy pursue them across the border, out of their jurisdiction, where Jack is arrested by the local police, who are working for Meyers.
Once Jack is transferred from a Mexican jail to Meyers's compound, it turns out Billy is working for Meyers, who has also kidnapped Ramona and her uncle Emile (Dan Davies). Meyers kills Emile by throwing him into a pool of water charged by live wires.
It turns out that Jack has a personal reason for going after Meyers, as Meyers's drugs killed Jack's daughter, Kassie (Bianca Van Varenberg) about three months ago. Kassie was 16 years old. Jack's pet rabbit was originally Kassie's rabbit, and he carries it around in memory of Kassie. He also swore on her grave to take down whatever drug operation he could find.
Meanwhile, Jack and Ramona manage to free themselves and kill Billy. Ramona calls for help from Mexican police, and she and Jack start fighting their way through Meyers's men. Ramona goes to find an escape vehicle, but is knocked out in a car crash.
Next, Jack is confronted by Karp, who is a martial arts expert. They fight, and Karp brutally kicks Jack in the head, effectively slowing him down. Jack, however, manages to overpower Karp and beats him to death. Meyers, whose potential investors have abandoned him, confronts Jack and is about to shoot him when Jack throws an explosive collar toward Meyers and detonates it. In the ending scene, Ramona advises Jack to go back to New Orleans with his wife.
Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg, known professionally as Jean-Claude Van Damme, is a Belgian martial artist and actor. Born and raised in Brussels, his father enrolled him in a Shotokan karate school at the age of ten, which led Van Damme to hold the rank of 2nd-dan black belt in karate, and compete in several karate and kickboxing competitions. With the desire of becoming an actor, he moved to the United States in 1982, where he did odd jobs and worked on several films, until he got his break as the lead in the martial arts film Bloodsport (1988).
Columbus is an incorporated village in Luna County, New Mexico, United States, about 3 miles (5 km) north of the Mexican border. It is considered a place of historical interest, as the scene of a 1916 attack by Mexican general Francisco "Pancho" Villa that caused the United States to send 10,000 troops there in the Mexican Expedition. Columbus's population was 1,664 at the 2010 census.
The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and is responsible for securing the borders of the United States. According to its web site in 2022, its mission is to "Protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity."
United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is the country's primary border control organization, charged with regulating and facilitating international trade, collecting import duties, as well as enforcing U.S. regulations, including trade, customs and immigration. CBP is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. It has a workforce of more than 45,600 federal agents and officers. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Hard Target is a 1993 action film directed by Hong Kong film director John Woo in his U.S. debut. The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Chance Boudreaux, an out-of-work homeless Cajun merchant seaman and former United States Force Recon Marine who saves a young woman named Natasha Binder from a gang of thugs in New Orleans. Chance learns that Binder is searching for her missing father, and agrees to aid Binder in her search. They soon learn that Binder's father has died at the hands of hunt organisers Emil Fouchon and Pik van Cleef, a ruthless businessman and his right-hand mercenary, who arrange the hunting of homeless men as a form of recreational sport. The screenplay was written by Pfarrer and is based on the 1932 film adaptation of Richard Connell's 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game".
The Mexico–United States border is an international border separating Mexico and the United States, extending from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from urban areas to deserts. The Mexico–U.S. border is the most frequently crossed border in the world with approximately 350 million documented crossings annually. It is the tenth-longest border between two countries in the world.
Where Danger Lives is a 1950 American film noir thriller directed by John Farrow and starring Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue and Claude Rains.
Lionheart is a 1990 American martial arts film directed by Sheldon Lettich, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Deborah Rennard, Harrison Page, Lisa Pelikan and Brian Thompson. It also features the acting debut of Ashley Johnson. Van Damme plays a French Foreign Legionnaire stationed in Africa, who must desert to the United States and enter the underground fighting circuit to raise money for his murdered brother's family.
Natalie Joy Robb is a Scottish actress and singer. She played the roles of Gemma Clewes in EastEnders Trish McDonald in the Scottish Television soap opera Take the High Road (1990–1999) and Jude Carlyle in the BBC soap opera Doctors (2001–2004). Since 2009, she has portrayed the role of Moira Barton in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale. Her other television roles include Dream Team (2000–2001) and The Bill (2004–2005).
Ignacio Ramos is a former United States Border Patrol Agent, who was convicted of shooting an unarmed illegal alien and drug smuggler on the United States–Mexico border. He was convicted of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, and a civil rights violation. On January 19, 2009, his sentence was commuted by President Bush and he was released on February 17, 2009. Ramos was granted a full pardon on December 22, 2020, by President Donald Trump.
HMAS Bundaberg, named after the city of Bundaberg, was an Armidale class patrol boat of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The ship was built in Henderson, Western Australia, and was commissioned into the RAN in March 2007. Based at HMAS Cairns, Bundaberg spent much of her career deployed as part of border protection and fisheries protection patrols as part of Operation Resolute. In addition, the patrol boat was involved in several national and multinational training exercises, visited Vanuatu in 2011, tracked a suspected drug-smuggling vessel that led to a multimillion-dollar seizure, and participated in the International Fleet Review 2013. In August 2014, a large fire broke out on the ship while she was undergoing refit. Extensive damage from the fire led to the ship's decommissioning in December 2014.
Scott Edward Adkins is a British actor, film producer and martial artist. He gained prominence with his villainous portrayal of the Russian prison fighter Yuri Boyka in Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006). He subsequently starred in its sequel Undisputed III: Redemption (2010), and Boyka: Undisputed (2017).
Banged Up Abroad is a British documentary/docudrama television series created by Bart Layton that was produced for Channel 5 and that premiered in March 2006. Most episodes feature stories of people who have been arrested while travelling abroad, usually for trying to smuggle illegal drugs, although some episodes feature people who were either kidnapped or captured while they were either travelling or living in other countries. Some episodes have featured real-life stories that first became well known when they were made the subject of a film: films that have been 're-made' in this way include Midnight Express, Goodfellas, The Devil's Double, Argo, Mr Nice and, to a lesser extent, Casino. A few episodes have focused on undercover infiltrations of criminal syndicates by law enforcement agents or individuals recruited by them.
From Mexico with Love is a 2009 American action-drama film directed by Jimmy Nickerson and starring Kuno Becker, Steven Bauer, Danay Garcia, Bruce McGill, and Stephen Lang.
A narco-submarine is a type of custom ocean-going, self-propelled, semi-submersible or fully-submersible vessel built by drug smugglers.
Smuggling tunnels are secret passages used for the smuggling of goods and people. The term is also used where the tunnels are built in response to a siege.
Assassination Games is a 2011 American action thriller film directed by Ernie Barbarash and starring Jean-Claude van Damme and Scott Adkins with Ivan Kaye as their main antagonist. The film was released in the United States on July 29, 2011.
Against All Enemies is a spy thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and co-authored with Peter Telep, and published on June 14, 2011. While it is set in the Ryanverse, it features a new character, ex-Navy SEAL and CIA paramilitary operations officer Max Moore, as he is tasked by a government joint task force to bring down a Mexican drug cartel and prevent Taliban terrorists from carrying out attacks in the United States. The book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
Enemies Closer is a 2013 American action thriller film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Tom Everett Scott, Orlando Jones and Linzey Cocker. In it, a former Navy SEAL is marked for death by the mourning brother of a comrade he left behind, only to have to team up with him when they both become targets of a deranged crime lord.
Hard Target 2 is a 2016 American action film directed by Roel Reiné, starring Scott Adkins, Robert Knepper, Temuera Morrison and Rhona Mitra. It is a reboot of, or sequel to, the 1993 film Hard Target, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme as a homeless cajun fighting a human hunting operation in New Orleans. The new film sees Adkins as a disgraced MMA champion who is unwittingly hired to act as prey in a deadly game of cat and mouse through the jungles of Myanmar.The film has no narrative connection to the first film.
