A former New Orleans cop battles drug cartels and ex-Army Special Forces who are smuggling drugs from Mexico into U.S. through a Texas border town. The Shepherd: Border Patrol as another highly entertaining Van Damme movie that not only benefits from his involvement but also from a very dangerous and compelling Scott Adkins who has a very epic battle with JCVD and almost kills him like in 10 different ways. The action was pretty well done and the storyline enough interesting and entertaining for to win it's viewers for sure. (10/10)

Former US Special Forces officers, who served in Afghanistan, are now drug-smuggling mercenaries, stationed in Mexico using illegals to push heroine across the boarder into New Mexico. Jean-Claude Van DAMME stars as a sombre New Orleans cop who moves to New Mexico to join the Boarder Patrol, motivated by the loss of his daughter(via drug overdose)to help stop the Meyers Cartel, and end their whole dirty operation, or die trying. Pretty much standard action fare with Van DAMME very solemn and stoic, haunted by his past, unable to sleep, almost never cracking a smile. He's often the butt of jokes because of a pet rabbit(his daughter's)he carries around. Natalie J Robb is Robideaux's(Van DAMME)boss, tough-talking Boarder Patrol Captain Ramona Garcia, stressed by the bureaucratic nonsense she often faces in the very dangerous job of stopping drugs and illegals from passing into New Mexico, establishing her seriousness in regards to keeping peace in her town, and not messing up while performing the duties as an officer. Gary McDonald is Robideaux's partner, Pawnell, actually on the payroll of the Meyers Cartel. Stephen Lord is Ben Meyers, the leader of the mercenary group, having sold his soul for the profits from drugs, in bed with other druglords. Daniel Perrone is Nestor, Meyers' second in command, equipped with martial arts skills, so you know he and Robideaux will eventually duel. Like a number of action flicks dealing with the hero up against terrorists or drug dealing baddies, there's the big chase, explosions, machine gun battles where opposing forces trade gunfire, and hand-to-hand combats.Along with the major chase sequence involving Meyers and his gang attempting to move into America dressed as priests inside a heavily armored bus, backtracking as police and Boarder Patrol follow in hot pursuit, the film's essential action set-piece occurs at the end as Robideaux and Garcia attempt to escape the Casa del Mar compound inside Las Palomos in Mexico, while upending Meyers' small army who plan to flee elsewhere due to their hidden lair being uncovered..as often is the case, instead of killing Robideaux and Garcia when he had the chance, Meyers spares them for later abuse, providing them with an opportunity to inflict future harm to his whole operation. I think Van DAMME had some well orchestrated fight scenes, including the obligatory prison contest where he must defeat a hand-picked criminal, and his work opposite Perrone towards the end. The plot is fatally ordinary, but director Isaac Florentine does especially well at showing bodies pummeled, flipping and flying in slow motion as they hit the ground. The movie has flair, but is desperately lacking in regards to it's uninspired story.

Jean-Claude plays a tired, sad looking character which works well for this movie; he's been through the death of his daughter due to drugs and is out for revenge on the suppliers as a border patrol agent. The film is quite stylish, with parts bordering on a spaghetti-western style with both the cinematography and music. The style of the film is much more interesting than the story, as are some of the fight scenes and I was pleased to see that most of them were filmed clearly (wide shots) so you can actually see what is happening (unlike some bigger budget films, like the recent Batman, that show fights in close-up so you can't really tell what's going on). The only bad side to the fighting is that the best bad-guy martial artist at the end has much better kicks than Jean-Claude which is not what you would expect if you've seen many of Jean-Claude's films. Overall an interesting stylized film that definitely could have been much better but was still entertaining.

I enjoyed it. There you go, I said it again. I even bought this movie on DVD and enjoyed it a couple of more times. Call me old fashioned but I prefer movies like this to garbage like Die Hard 4 which hold up the box office and get critical acclaim just because you have some old guy saving America. Van Damme moves well for a guy of his age(47 I think), delivering kicks that reminds one of Kickboxer. If you like old school action and and explosions, this is the movie to watch. This is one of Van Damme's best works.Van Damme and Steven Seagal movies get released theatrically where I live so I never miss a chance to watch our old school action stars on the big screen.