In the mid 1990s, I enjoyed a film-going guilty pleasure by the name of Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Perhaps a tad burnt out by art-house pretensions like “La Belle noiseuse” and “Prospero’s Books,” I would plunk down on opening day with a decidedly Testosterone-fueled crowd — a motley crew of sleeveless Megadeth concert-Ts and “two dudes who always put a seat between themselves because they aren’t that way” dudes — to catch the latest Van Damme flick, indulging in a heaping serving of better-get-your-popcorn pulp. The training wheels of his early “Bloodsport” and “Kickboxer” vehicles had been discarded as Hollywood attempted to make a movie star out of a martial arts tactician. “Hard Target” was John Woo’s first American film and he and Van Damme provided considerable thrills on a modest budget. “Timecop” was implausible fun with a sly Ron Silver performance while the dependably suspenseful “Sudden Death” made an NHL game relevant. They were entertaining, if imperfectly so, but Van Damme‘s athleticism and proficient direction by Woo and Peter Hyams made them pleasing diversions. Blessed with boyish charm, hunky good looks and an appealing Belgian French accent, Van Damme even earned a prominent role on a post-Super Bowl “Friends.”
But just as suddenly as he’d kick started a respectable box-office niche, his career quickly evaporated into straight-to-DVD fare and the ignominy of sharing the screen with Dennis Rodman. He faded into punch line status as he became more famous for boasting he could crack walnuts with his buttocks.
So, it‘s no joke, “JCVD” is a revelation. Always fictional but steeped in the autobiographical, it’s a movie about Jean-Claude Van Damme, but this is no caricature nor overt parody but instead a contemplation. It’s heartfelt, clever, and at times, even mesmerizing. The Versailles-born French director Mabrouk El Mechri has made one hell of a movie. El Mechri and his cinematographer, Pierre-Yves Bastard, which sounds like the name of a disappointing Van Damme character, have draped the film in a sepia-toned documentary style with washed out, muted colors and a grainy patina. The strong visual is matched by a smart, predominantly French script from El Mechri and his co-writers, Frederic Benudis and Christophe Turpin, which utilizes the legend of Van Damme without condescension.
“JCVD” is buoyed by a crafty opening in which Van Damme charges punching, gouging and kicking with considerable brio through a scene in one of his typical, uninspired projects, until, at cut, he engages in a darkly comical exchange with a young, disinterested director clearly disdainful of the film as anything other than a springboard, the sequence climaxing with the set crashing to the ground behind the weary Van Damme. The fourth wall is removed; and while the film is not told in first person, it is intimate and direct.
Embroiled in a child custody tussle and frustrated with the pathetic routine of his acting choices, Van Damme returns to his hometown of Brussels for a respite. Instantly recognized and adored by shop clerks and taxi drivers, he pays a fateful visit to a post office in the Schaerbeek community which devolves into a bank robbery with hostages. Given his publicized court troubles and a sighting at a window, the police believe Van Damme is the crook. And the three thieves are pleased to use Jean-Claude as their foil.
But as engrossing as the film is, a powerful scene showcasing Van Damme is an epiphany. Van Damme is sitting in a non-descript chair in a back room of the post office. Slowly the chair rises with the camera shot, until there is all black behind him, framing his haggard face and broad shoulders. Van Damme speaks squarely to the camera, about his tenuous career, his unsettled life, an insatiable desire for love, his adoration for women, and the torment of drugs. It is a confessional without a request for mercy, or pity. He accepts that he yearned for the fame which supplied him with what he desires and what bedevils him. He speaks for minutes on end, captivatingly, soulfully, and with clarity and raw emotion. The chair floats back to the post office floor. And you try to catch your breath. It is the single strongest concentrated piece of acting I’ve seen this year. Clearly Van Damme’s finest moment on screen, it would buttress the resume of any noted film actor working today.
We always thought the dexterity was in his hips as he swiveled his foot into a standing man’s chin, but, perhaps, nurtured by a sincere director such as the emerging El Mechri and proffered a role like Jean Reno’s in “The Professional” or Toshiro Mifune’s in “Yojimbo,” he can resurrect his career with characters which meld the physicality of the action star with an informed depth.
When placing his trust in a young director whose only other feature-length film was 2005’s little seen “Virgil,” Van Damme must have been fearful that a misstep in El Mechri’s approach could lead to a patronizing tone or, worse, a cartoonish, lampooned portrayal. But El Mechri has respectfully repaid the faith that Jean-Claude entrusted in him by creating the most unexpected instant cult classic of 2008.
