“On Land, on sea, and in the air they’re Damme quick, Damme cool, Damme Hot, Van Damme times two…double the Van Dammage.”
-Double Impact Trailer by Don Lafontaine
Now what happened to those days? What happened to the 80’s and 90’s the era of the action hero? Yes we’ve seen a the recent trend in 50 year old actors bring back Rambo,Die Hard,Terminator and the problem with those movies is that these guys are no longer in their primes and they arn’t Sean Connory so its goofy looking and totally unrealistic beyond its own means. Now we have super heroes and fantasy heroes running around and though i find those movies entertaining we need the next Jackie Chan. We need the next Segal,Stallone,Swarzena..schwazena..Governator…to blow things up, shoot first ask questions later, to have those ridiculous one liners that will live forever and to have a man put in an extraordinary situation giving him no choice but to become extraordinary himself. What happened to the average guy who just so happens to know kung fu and is a body builder who is a weapons expert and now works a desk job at a used car lot in middle America who’s family gets kidnapped by international spies because of his past who then forces him to do something to get them back? Well you want to know what happened to them? Watch JCVD. It turns out they are living in Belgium and are holding up Post Offices because they need money to fight a custody battle.
JCVD premiered in US theatres in November 2008 (June 08 in France) but was in extremely limited release only playing in two theaters in the Los Angeles area. I got lucky and saw it as a screener DVD with a industry friend. This film should have been nominated for Best Foreign Film at this year’s Oscars. JCVD is about a 47 year old Jean Claude Van Damme (JCVD) who is fighting a custody battle, has little work, and ends up walking in on a robbery while in Belgium. Through a series of unfortunate events the police think its JCVD robbing the place and well he is forced by the robbers to play along. About 85 percent of the movie is in French so its subtitled and it runs for an hour and a half. Think “Being John Malkovich” only no wormhole and with some action and kung fu. The movie has a cool look to it and the camera work is fun. Only thing not fun was the random jump cuts in some scenes. Other than that no complaints.
It was funny and I had a great time watching JCVD tell his somewhat life story while playing himself in this movie. In real life JCVD has starred in at least 1 movie every year since 1984 but they have all been foreign or straight to DVD since like 1999. The movie plays out like “Memento” in chunks and backwards. The Muscles from Brussels is followed through out the day just going from one bad experience to another. Even with all the praise, respect, and admiration he receives from everyone he encounters he still can’t land a role because they go to Steven Segal after he agrees to cut off his signature ponytail. Then what he does get sucks because his agent doesn’t even bother to read the scripts. Its rather funny to see him make reference to his old movies while in this robbery/hostage situation. Just telling the robbers what bad guys in his films do while he kicks cigarettes out of peoples mouths was funny. At the same time it’s sad to see him as a person because outside this robbery the movie truly is his life. He blames his current situation on living his boyhood dream of becoming a star. If he was never famous he believes he would have found love only once and it never would have been a drug.
So be sure to catch this JCVD flick. He is currently working on Universal Soldier III. This is out on DVD via NetFlix and should be hitting American shelves this February.
If you guys are into foreign cinema check out the Vengeance movies by Korean director/writer Chan-wook Park. Mr. Vengeance, Old Boy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. Mind you they are all very great but graphic movies.
reviewed by
-Albert