Robert Harmon

  • They (2002)

    They (2002)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2020) A thoroughly forgettable entry in the “is she crazy or isn’t she?” horror subgenre, They is about as bland as its title. Much of the story has to do with a young woman convinced that there are nightmare creatures stalking her and if you’ve fallen asleep already, I can’t really blame you: this is old, old stuff by horror movie standards, and the film does little to make it feel any fresher (even by 2002 standards). The ending scene is not bad, but by that time we’re this close to cheering for the creatures anyway. Almost nothing else stands out from the result: The actors are unfamiliar for a reason (although Jodelle Ferland does make an early appearance) and director Robert Harmon has done much better elsewhere. In the end, They is your standard moody, dark, undistinguished horror film—it plays better as background noise than anything worth watching in a sustained fashion.

  • Nowhere to Run (1993)

    Nowhere to Run (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) As dull and featureless as most Jean-Claude Van Damme movies of the early-1990s, Nowhere to Run doesn’t have much to offer to those who aren’t already fans of the actor. Here we have van Damme as an escaped ex-convict (but not the bad kind of ex-convict, obviously) taking up the protection of a widow and her two children against unscrupulous real-estate developers in a rural setting. To be fair, Robert Harmon’s direction does have a few moments, especially in the action sequences. Still, that’s not much—There’s more fun in chuckling at Belgian van Damme pretending to be from Québec, or seeing an unusually cute Rosanna Arquette go through the motions of a rote role. There really isn’t much to gnaw on in the movie, even for action-movie fans—it’s fairly dull stuff, with few surprises in execution. Van Damme was averaging nearly a movie and a half per year in the early 1990s (not an easy feat considering the rigours of an action role), and Nowhere to Run has the bad luck of being sandwiched between the far-better Universal Soldier and Hard Target. In other words, don’t worry too much if you forgot about it—you’re liable to forget about it moments after watching it again.