Legionnaire

Legionnaire is currently streaming in the US on Amazon Prime Video and fuboTV, and in the UK on Amazon Prime Video and Icon Film Amazon Channel, and it earns its set pieces rather than just delivering them. The runtime earns every minute, with nothing here that feels like padding. A 6/10 rating says what the writing already makes obvious: this one works. Jean-Claude Van Damme brings a physicality to the role that elevates every sequence. There is no real reason to keep putting it off — it is right there on Amazon Prime Video.

Legionnaire is not trying to be everything to everyone, and that focus is exactly what makes it work. The choreography in Legionnaire serves the story instead of interrupting it. Alain Lefevre is a boxer paid by a Marseille mobster to take a dive. When he wins the fight he attempts to flee to America with the mobster's girlfriend Katrina. This plan fails and he seeks escape by joining the foreign legion. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was released in 1998. The geography of every set piece in Legionnaire is legible, which is rarer in the genre than it should be. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

Legionnaire is the kind of thing you put on to unwind and find yourself sitting forward twenty minutes in. It stands on its own even without an obvious comparison point. Short enough to finish in one sitting, substantial enough to feel satisfying. Jean-Claude Van Damme's performance is the throughline that holds the bigger action elements together. Give it twenty minutes and decide — most viewers do not stop there.