The Shepherd

This film is good in it's genre and that genre is naturally action with a little/average budget. Looks like Van Damme delivers greatly better performances when he has a good director guiding him. There is your basic bar brawl, alley scene and mostly a lot of gun fighting. Some basic drama, but nothing too deep. Isaac Florentine directs an OK action flick if you ignore the weak plot and the holes in it. But the person who steals the show is:

Scott Adkins. How come this guy isn't a massive Arnold Schwarzenegger caliber action star that I don't know. Director Isaac Florentine has made a movie with Scott Adkins before called Special Forces (2003) which has some unbelievable martial arts talent that will satisfy the most demanding kungfu enthusiastic. Another amazing Scott Adkins feature is Undisputed 2. Check this guy out and make a noise, this guy needs to get super action star status and he needs to get it now!

What else can I say about the movie? It's Van Damme stepping up a notch from some of his most recent work. No Oscars here for sure, but you already knew that. But never the less it has a nice little town feel and I could find worse ways to spend my time. So I'm giving this a solid 7 out of 10 in it's genre.

Well...it's about time! Van Damme is back and kicking in this action thriller that's his best film in recent years. The plot isn't too inventive but the whole border patrol theme is interesting and the ex-marines as drug smugglers twist is cool. But what makes this movie awesome is the fact that Van Damme is back to doing martial arts again. His latest films have been more acting oriented, but in "The Shepard", JCVD is back to dropping the bad guys and looks to be in excellent shape. There are some impressive fight scenes and Van Damme shows he can still pull out the old famous 360-spinning heel kick. For being a low-budget action movie, it does have good sets and great stunts. Van Damme says some humorous lines and shows that he's improving as an actor. I'm glad he's back to dealing out some Van Damage...i've been let down by the lack of fighting in his recent films. Scott Adkins is great in his role and Van Damme and him have a 1 on 1 showdown at the end. Overall, it's one of Van Damme's better films and it will keep you entertained. A must rent for JCVD fans. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for another martial arts epic like "Bloodsport" or "Kickboxer". Nok Su Kow!

After seeing Undisputed 2, I knew what to expect from Isaac Florentine.

The Shepherd: Border Patrol is a decent flick (not Van Damme's best, but definitely not his worst.) There is some bad acting from VD's supporting cast, but it makes sense.

The storyline and plot has all been done before, so it's nothing new. I mean this is Van Damme. We don't really expect much of an amazing plot do we? So lets talk about what we all want to watch this movie for anyway: the fighting.

Without giving anything away, I thought the way the fights were filmed and shot were well done, way better than a few of VD's recent movies such as Second in Command, in which the entire end fight is HORRIBLE. With Florentine behind the camera, and if you've seen Undisputed 2, he seems to know how to photograph fights and enjoys it. A few of the fights in The Shepherd reminded me of VD's older stuff which is what we all want to see. The fights were good, and i said "hah, awesome" out loud a few times. But I was hoping for just a bit more considering how good I thought Undisputed 2 was.

Something I found intriguing was VD's daughter in the film, I thought "wow she's kinda hot" come to find out, its Bianca Van Varenberg, JC's real life daughter. I have never seen her before so that was a nice treat.

All in all, this movie is not half bad. Yeah the story has been done before but at least JC was attempting to make a good movie. Next time though, add more hand to hand combat! I think He still has what it takes to do another big budget movie...his acting has improved since he's been doing DTV's and he really is in great shape at 47. I don't know about you but I'm one of the ones who thinks that most of his DTV's are actually good with the exception of Derailed. All he needs to do is get back into "bloodsport" shape, and make a martial arts movie...and I think people would respond well even though he's not jet Li. This movie is definitely worth the rental. =)

This is the best direct-to-DVD effort from Van Damme that I have seen yet. Van Damme plays a border patrol agent who is out to stop heroin smugglers trying to cross into the United States. The action in this movie is great and the fight scenes rank with Van Damme's best. Costar Scott Adkins shows why he should be the next big star in the martial arts genre. For further evidence check out "Undisputed 2". Adkins is so good in fact that before I watched "The Shepherd", I thought that Van Damme might not look very believable in defeating him on screen. Van Damme holds his own though and although he isn't quite as athletic as Adkins is, he can still kick with the best of them. All of the fight scenes in this film are very well done and the gun battles are above average for this type of film as well. The only negative thing I can say about this movie is that the story is a little underdeveloped. I think Van Damme's character's motives should have been presented earlier in the movie, especially in regard to why he carries around a rabbit. The reason he does is very cool but you don't find out until the very end. There are a couple of other things that are never really explained either but this is a Van Damme movie so you know where the priority lies in making this kind of movie and it ain't character development. Overall though, this is a solid action movie that I recommend. So run for the Damme border!

the director was great. I think the screenplay was horrid. It's just that there were so many loop holes and unexplained things, and a lot of the stuff didn't really make sense. The direction was good for an action movie.

It seems that Van Damme is finally getting some good direction with his films.

You can expect to have a pretty good time. Eh you might be kinda bored with the dialog but the action makes up for it. scott adkins was excellent. can't wait to see more of him. great action.

This movie should have been put into a wider release than how it is. It would have made a few bits more money.