Review: JCVD starring Jean-Claude Van Damme
Action Star Ditches Martial Arts for Dramatic Crime Thriller.
JCVD may stand for Jean-Claude Van Damme, but this is not a typical Van Damme shoot-em-up, kick-em-up action flick.
While in the past, Van Damme has played hard-hitting tough guys in films like Hard Target and Time Cop, here he tackles the toughest role of all – himself.
This fictionalized version of Van Damme is down on his luck. His wife divorced him and wants custody of the children; he’s bouncing checks and can’t even pay his lawyer to defend him in court; and on top of this, he’s losing all the good action scripts to Steven Seagal.
Wrongfully Accused Action Star
Van Damme returns to his home country of Belgium and things quickly turn from bad to worse when he’s caught up in a post office robbery gone wrong. While the police believe the actor is the man behind the robbery, the real criminals are inside forcing JCVD to take the blame and demand one million Euros.
This may sound like the makings of another thrill-a-minute blockbuster – standard fare for Van Damme circa 1994 – and one can reasonably expect to sit on the edge of the couch anticipating the arrival of reanimated soldiers to take out the bad guys.
But it doesn’t happen. There is no hero here, and Van Damme, the actor who is just a man outside of his movies, is as helpless as all of the other hostages.
There is definitely something surreal about the situation – a defenseless Van Damme doing as he’s told for fear of getting shot, weeping at the thought of his daughter getting taken from him, choking up when his mother is put on the phone by the police. All the while, the streets outside the post office fill with locals who chant Van Damme’s name, praising the hometown hero even though he (as far as they know) is demanding a million dollars for the safe release of his hostages.
Fine Acting Trumps Action Sequences
Even though the American release is dubbed in English, one can easily see that Van Damme brings more to the screen than just a few roundhouse kicks.
JCVD does a fine job showing that this man who has made an entire career out of filming the same brainless movie over and over actually has acting skills. Some viewers will likely pan a final act monologue delivered by Van Damme straight to the camera, finding it pretentious; but others will laud this soliloquy as the heart of the movie, the moment where Van Damme truly shines.
The audience will surely feel for him, knowing that his pain is real without needing all the fancy martial arts action to hold their attention (though, deep down, it’s hard not to root for Van Damme, waiting for the moment when he takes his captors by surprise and commences with the butt-kicking).
But this isn’t an action movie, so that moment never comes, and JCVD is that much better for that very reason.
Score: 9 out of 10
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