JCVD

Review by Matthew Rodgers

The muscles from Brussels returns from a career nadir with this tongue in cheek pseudo-documentary day in the life of a Friends cameo making superstar, now without a gimmicky twin storyline or a Universal Soldier sequel in the pipeline he is reduced to playing second fiddle to Steven Segal in the direct-to-DVD market. “The studio has decided to go with Steven instead; He’s agreed to cut off his ponytail”.

Compounding the reality of Van Damme’s non-existent career is a legal battle for the custody of his daughter and mounting tax problems that have forced him to retreat to the relative anonymity afforded by his home country. That is until an innocuous trip to the bank ends with JCVD embroiled in a televised hostage situation, and results in the self deprecating, honest examination of a fallen star.

JCVD opens with possibly one of the most impressive sequences of recent memory, let alone any Van Damme film, something of a low-key aping of the Children of Men tracking shot, the camera follows Jean-Claude as he kicks, jumps and improvises his way through an on-set action sequence of explosions and badly choreographed extras. Impressive as it is, disappointingly it sets a precedent that the remainder of the film never reaches.

In fact, JCVD is a movie of moments rather than consistent quality; too often it plays out within its limited talent and budgetary constraints. The siege sequences and their bickering cops are straight from any number of early 90’s action movies and obviously that’s the point, but they are not injected with any of the inventiveness of the aforementioned opening.

Van Damme himself is impressively understated, never the showman off the set, eager to sign autographs, and possibly most frustratingly, inept during the heist scenes as he remains solemnly seated throughout. But it’s in this chair that he has his “Hamlet moment” as the action stops and he levitates in the air before addressing the camera for an impassioned five minute confession to his fans during which he cries. Now it’s difficult to know the intended tone of the sequence as it moves from slightly awkward to genuinely captivating (it’s hard to commit these words to page knowing that they are about Van Damme) but whatever your reading of it, it’s memorably brilliant.

Worth seeing for a couple of stand-out moments, JCVD remains more of an fascinating oddity than a necessity.