In an interview, Jean Claude Van Damme says that he believes In Hell may be his best acting performance to date. This may be so, but I'm still not impressed.

In Hell fails on so many levels as to be almost, but not quite, laughable. This is a prison movie, complete with every prison movie cliche that you've ever heard of. All of these cliches are wrapped up in a film that very obviously suffers from many last minute re-writes and production errors.

The story is about a man named Kyle LaBlanc (Jean Claude Van Damme) who has been assigned to a production plant in Russia. One night he comes home to find that his wife has been raped and murdered. When the courts refuse to convict the man, Kyle shoots him right in the court house and is subsequently sentenced to life in prison.

When in prison, Kyle discovers, much to the shock of the audience, that the prison is little more than front for illegal death fights for the fun and profit of the prison owners and guards (oh come on, who didn't see that coming?).

At first Kyle refuses to fight, but because this is a Van Damme movie and the muscles from Brussels can't to anything else, he soon joins in. Unfortunately, for those looking for Van Damme's trademark flashy (if highly impractical) acrobatic martial arts, they will have to look somewhere else. This movie can't even come up with satisfying fight scenes.

I mentioned that the film has some inconsistencies. To begin with, sometimes between filming and the release of the DVD, the film apparently changed titles. Search for it on the Internet Movie Database and it comes up with The Savage and while it describes the same plot, the character names are changed.

Furthermore, some plot descriptions have the film taking place in Mexico rather than Russia. This makes some elements of the film make a lot more sense (it doesn't excuse them, mind you).

For instance, the film takes place in Russia, but the language is only spoken in the opening scenes and quickly everything switches over the English. This is a typical movie convention, however many of the inmates seem to be American, a situation that would make a lot more sense in a Mexican prison rather than a Russian prison.

Other than the Russian military uniforms, the film looks very little like something that might have been filmed in Russia and the prison is run more like a corrupt Hollywood prison, following rules long ingrained in celluloid manuals for bad movies.

I will forgive a movie for poor acting and even worse plots if there is something else to redeem it. Van Damme's Bloodsport, for instance, has practically no plot and extremely bad acting, but it is interesting to watch for the flashy fight scenes.

In Hell offers nothing to the audience but contrived drama, over-used character sterotypes and poorly conceived fight scenes.

One final note, the film ends with Kyle escaping the prison. I offer this spoiler only because anyone with two brain cells to rub together will already have figured out this conclusion anyway. The reason I bring this up is because it is yet one more piece of evidence of re-writes happening without anyone keep track of the details. Were this a Mexican prison, I could accept Kyle's escape. It would be conceivable that he could make his way back home to America. In Russia, however, he lacks a passport, money and all he has for clothes is a stolen general's uniform. There is no place he can go and after inuring and killing military officers to make his escape, the U.S. Embassy isn't going to offer much help. In short, his escape is pointless, as is this movie.