This film justifies the entire career of Jean-Claude Van Damme. All the crappy movies. All the tabloid nonsense. All the personal excesses. Without it, this movie could not exist. You couldn't make it with Stallone or Schwarzenegger. You couldn't make it with Seagal or Norris or even Dolph Lundgren. Van Damme had to exist in exactly the way he existed for this motion picture to be made. It's a great story. Too bad the storytelling isn't.
As you might guess from the title, Van Damme plays himself as an aging action star reduced to starring in idiotic crap. He's losing custody of his daughter. He's running out of money. His chance at a comeback is going to Steven Seagal. On a return home to Belgium, Van Damme gets caught up in a bank robbery at a post office. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I guess in Belgium the post offices are also banks or wire transfer stations like Western Union. Anyway, the authorities think Van Damme is the one robbing the place and keeping the people in the post office hostage. That gives the three real robbers inside the idea of making Van Damme play that part as they try to figure how to get the hell out of there. As the post office is surrounded by the police and the police is surrounded by the media and the media is surrounded by cheering Van Damme fans, a man who really was an international movie star has to find a way through almost surrealistic circumstances and come out alive on the other side.
JCVD is an odd duck in that it is an absolute must watch without truly being a great motion picture. Let me get into why that is before gushing over everything else. This film looks, feels and even sounds too stylish. The subject matter and the performance of Van Damme is simultaneously raw and complex and needed to be presented in a gritty, unadorned way. Yet both the structure of the script and the visual style of director Mabrouk El Mechri is too flashy and works too hard at being clever. From a non-linear plot to title cards breaking the story into segments to an overly theatrical killing, JCVD too often seems more like a conventional action thriller or some pretentious art house flick instead of a brutally frank examination of a fallen star. Maybe mimicking a Tarantino-like comeback vehicle for Van Damme was an attempt to add another layer of "meta-ness" to the whole production. If so, it was one layer too many.
For example, the highlight of the film is this tremendous monologue from Van Damme about his whole life and the things that animated his rise and then his decline. His performance throughout the movie is incredible and this monologue is his spectacular peak. But instead of having the monologue take place within the confines of the story, Van Damme is literally elevated up out of a scene into the overhead lighting, where he talks directly into the camera. It's a phenomenal bit of acting, and not just because of the low standards Van Damme has set, but it totally shatters the sense of reality the rest of the narrative hangs on.
It's too bad because this is a near brilliant narrative that pits the truth of Van Damme (in the context of this fictional representation of his life) vs. his own self-image vs. the image others project onto him. It depicts the irrational appeal and the impossible demands of celebrity. It makes you feel sympathy for someone who's been vastly more successful than you and then foolishly wasted all that opportunity. It is a profoundly sad story, every more sadly being told by people more interested in looking "cool".
If you've ever loved, liked, hated or mocked Jean-Claude Van Damme, you need to see this movie. If you want to see the mythology of the action star deconstructed before you eyes, you need to see this movie. If you want to see a much derided performer prove he honestly deserved his time in the spotlight, you need to see this movie. I don't think I've ever seen another film as well made as this where I so deeply wish the filmmakers had made different creative choices. Believe the hype. JCVD is that good.
As you might guess from the title, Van Damme plays himself as an aging action star reduced to starring in idiotic crap. He's losing custody of his daughter. He's running out of money. His chance at a comeback is going to Steven Seagal. On a return home to Belgium, Van Damme gets caught up in a bank robbery at a post office. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. I guess in Belgium the post offices are also banks or wire transfer stations like Western Union. Anyway, the authorities think Van Damme is the one robbing the place and keeping the people in the post office hostage. That gives the three real robbers inside the idea of making Van Damme play that part as they try to figure how to get the hell out of there. As the post office is surrounded by the police and the police is surrounded by the media and the media is surrounded by cheering Van Damme fans, a man who really was an international movie star has to find a way through almost surrealistic circumstances and come out alive on the other side.
JCVD is an odd duck in that it is an absolute must watch without truly being a great motion picture. Let me get into why that is before gushing over everything else. This film looks, feels and even sounds too stylish. The subject matter and the performance of Van Damme is simultaneously raw and complex and needed to be presented in a gritty, unadorned way. Yet both the structure of the script and the visual style of director Mabrouk El Mechri is too flashy and works too hard at being clever. From a non-linear plot to title cards breaking the story into segments to an overly theatrical killing, JCVD too often seems more like a conventional action thriller or some pretentious art house flick instead of a brutally frank examination of a fallen star. Maybe mimicking a Tarantino-like comeback vehicle for Van Damme was an attempt to add another layer of "meta-ness" to the whole production. If so, it was one layer too many.
For example, the highlight of the film is this tremendous monologue from Van Damme about his whole life and the things that animated his rise and then his decline. His performance throughout the movie is incredible and this monologue is his spectacular peak. But instead of having the monologue take place within the confines of the story, Van Damme is literally elevated up out of a scene into the overhead lighting, where he talks directly into the camera. It's a phenomenal bit of acting, and not just because of the low standards Van Damme has set, but it totally shatters the sense of reality the rest of the narrative hangs on.
It's too bad because this is a near brilliant narrative that pits the truth of Van Damme (in the context of this fictional representation of his life) vs. his own self-image vs. the image others project onto him. It depicts the irrational appeal and the impossible demands of celebrity. It makes you feel sympathy for someone who's been vastly more successful than you and then foolishly wasted all that opportunity. It is a profoundly sad story, every more sadly being told by people more interested in looking "cool".
If you've ever loved, liked, hated or mocked Jean-Claude Van Damme, you need to see this movie. If you want to see the mythology of the action star deconstructed before you eyes, you need to see this movie. If you want to see a much derided performer prove he honestly deserved his time in the spotlight, you need to see this movie. I don't think I've ever seen another film as well made as this where I so deeply wish the filmmakers had made different creative choices. Believe the hype. JCVD is that good.