JCVD.
Jean Claude van Damme.
The muscles from Brussels, the short guy with the big arms and the funny accent and the lumpy head. The guy who starred in every early nineties actioner that didn't have the budget to afford Stallone or Schwarzenegger. The guy that gave Steven Seagal a genuine run for his money when it comes to cheesy dialogue and all-round awfulness. The king of straight-to-DVD.
Until, 15 years after van Damme was in his Hollywood prime, some anonymous French director decides to make JCVD.
JCVD is a heist movie, the dialogue is in French and it takes place in a small town in Belgium, so on the face of it it's nothing special. But what sets this films apart from every other French language, Belgium set heist movie (because there are many) is that the world it portrays, the actual heist, is fiction, but Jean Claude van Damme is just that: Jean Claude van Damme. This film is a meta-film, a hybrid of fiction and biography.
Van Damme plays himself, a worn out actor losing custody over his daughter, struggling for money, suffering from a crisis of identity, and, worst of all, losing parts for films he doesn't really want to do, who happens to stumble upon, and subsequently gets caught up in, the robbery of a small-town post office.
So far, so post-modern.
And then, about halfway through the film, van Damme is literally lifted out of the post office set, into the rafters of the studio, breaking right through the fourth wall, where he delivers an astounding, literally breathtaking six minute monologue in which he reflects upon his life and career, his regrets and his faults - six minutes of pure, raw emotion. This scene is nothing short of amazing.
This monologue is either completely fabricated and scripted, which makes van Damme, on account of this scene, a superb actor, or it is entirely improvised and sincere, which makes van Damme something he has never been in the eyes of the world: human, flawed, hurt. Whichever it is (and I suspect it is the latter), it is a performance that deserves all the credit in the world and more.
A marvelous film, which has given me a new-found respect for Jean Claude van Damme.
The muscles from Brussels, the short guy with the big arms and the funny accent and the lumpy head. The guy who starred in every early nineties actioner that didn't have the budget to afford Stallone or Schwarzenegger. The guy that gave Steven Seagal a genuine run for his money when it comes to cheesy dialogue and all-round awfulness. The king of straight-to-DVD.
Until, 15 years after van Damme was in his Hollywood prime, some anonymous French director decides to make JCVD.
JCVD is a heist movie, the dialogue is in French and it takes place in a small town in Belgium, so on the face of it it's nothing special. But what sets this films apart from every other French language, Belgium set heist movie (because there are many) is that the world it portrays, the actual heist, is fiction, but Jean Claude van Damme is just that: Jean Claude van Damme. This film is a meta-film, a hybrid of fiction and biography.
Van Damme plays himself, a worn out actor losing custody over his daughter, struggling for money, suffering from a crisis of identity, and, worst of all, losing parts for films he doesn't really want to do, who happens to stumble upon, and subsequently gets caught up in, the robbery of a small-town post office.
So far, so post-modern.
And then, about halfway through the film, van Damme is literally lifted out of the post office set, into the rafters of the studio, breaking right through the fourth wall, where he delivers an astounding, literally breathtaking six minute monologue in which he reflects upon his life and career, his regrets and his faults - six minutes of pure, raw emotion. This scene is nothing short of amazing.
This monologue is either completely fabricated and scripted, which makes van Damme, on account of this scene, a superb actor, or it is entirely improvised and sincere, which makes van Damme something he has never been in the eyes of the world: human, flawed, hurt. Whichever it is (and I suspect it is the latter), it is a performance that deserves all the credit in the world and more.
A marvelous film, which has given me a new-found respect for Jean Claude van Damme.
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