HARD TARGET 2 (2016)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

This very belated (25 years!) sequel-in-name-only to 1993's HARD TARGET is an efficient if unremarkable action-opus built on the chopsocky skills of star Scott Adkins as the titular target. But my main interest in it is that its execution is one more demonstration of my trope-theory. 

Prior to this review, I've bracketed two other "hunting humans" films for comparison in order to show that this "bizarre crime" trope, like others in my other categories, can always have "naturalistic" as well as "uncanny" permutations. The distinction between each phenomenality-domain always depends on the absence or presence of narrative motifs that suggest an essential "strangeness" about the events depicted. 

The 1993 Van Damme film takes the concept of the DANGEROUS GAME short story, in which a madman hunts human beings for sport, and turns the practice into a business run by sane but ruthless mercenaries, who offer rich assholes the chance to hunt impoverished homeless people in big cities. The motif of the Promethean madman is gone, but in its place is the idea of transporting a perilous criminal activity to the streets of big cities, where the possibility of exposure is extremely high.

TARGET 2 duplicates the business practices of the first film in that villain Aldrich (Rob Knepper) also organizes hunts of human beings for the entertainment of rich assholes. However, Aldrich centers his operations in the wilds of Myanmar, paying off officials to look the other way while he preys upon poor locals. This is an atypical crime, but given the location the viewer is not as likely to be incredulous that something like this could happen, so there's nothing uncanny about it.

New hero Wes Baylor (Adkins) ends up appearing virtually on Aldrich's doorstep. Baylor, a MMA fighter, accidentally kills a fellow fighter in a tournament, and becomes so distraught that he gives up on life, traveling to Thailand and eking out a living in underground cage fights. Aldrich invites Baylor to Myanmar with the lure of a new fight, and when Adkins arrives, he learns that he's expected to run for his life from armed thrill-seekers.

Aldrich is a flat villain, though ably portrayed by Knepper, whom I knew only from a very different role in 1987's WILD THING, and the rest of his accomplices are no better, with one exception: Sofia (Rhona Mitra). She not only gets one of the most extensive fight-scenes with her quarry-- probably because the actress had established herself for her fake-fighting skills in movies like 2008's DOOMSDAY-- she even has a minor psychological motivation, in that she's hunting men because her despised father was a hunter. Not that motivation is very important in an American chopsocky, but one should acknowledge even small extra touches.

But action sells TARGET 2, and as I said, Adkins delivers on the fight-scenes, and his character gets some romantic support when he succors local native Tha (Ann Truong), whose brother escaped the last hunt. Tha gets a little action of her own, knife-killing a hunter who attempts to rape her, and later managing to kill Sofia, largely by dumb luck more than superior fighting-skill. There's another small arc with one of the hunters being a web-game designer seeking to use the experience for a "first-person shooter" game, but this comes to nothing special, any more than Baylor's predictable redemption.

If a viewer is not interested in sussing out the phenomenality of action flicks, one could probably get the best out of TARGET 2 by fast-forwarding through any scenes that don't involve either Adkins or Mitra fighting.