John Woo, after his many Hong Kong efforts, came to America and made Hard Target (1993), which due to studio interference and bad taking of direction by Jean Claude Van Damme, wasn't as good as it could have been. Woo got a bad reputation due to his conflicts with both the MPAA and Universal, and it took him awhile to get this one off of the ground. Woo had never worked with special effects, so he was treading into new territory. Luckily, he got two great leads, Christian Slater (soon to be in Windtalkers), and John Travolta (Face/Off). They take his direction well, and each gives a good performance. As the traditional villain's henchman, which I like to call Indestructable Villain Sidekick, Howie Long gives a good performance, and dies a good death too. I never appreciated this movie that much until watching it tonight, and I realized, this is probably the most action-packed movie in a long time. It takes only about 6 minutes to get going, and then, boom! boom! boom! Action sequence after the other, no let-down in between. This movie has plently of shootouts, explosions, and great innovative twists (kicking the rear blade of a helicopter to knock a gun out of one's hand) to make a action movie good. John Woo's cinematography, the great shared moments (the 20 dollar bill and whatnot) are what makes this one a great action movie. Another thing that makes this flick great is that it gave Woo the power to get Face/Off, his best Hollywood outing, the greenlight. I'm looking forward to Windtalkers and love all of Woo's movies.<br /><br />9 outta 10.