Sometimes life can surprise you. Sometimes you think you have it all figured out, then life throws you a curve ball and forces you to rethink your entire belief system. Let’s take Jean-Claude Van Damme for example. I thought I had him figured out; shitty actor, washed up martial arts star. Before I saw “JCVD”, that basically summed up my feelings of the man. But, “JCVD” turned out to be one of those curve balls that forced me to re-evaluate my opinion on the topic.
Now I know that “Bloodsport” and “Universal Soldier” have their fans… hell, I once even met a guy who liked “Street Fighter”. However, guilty pleasures aside, I think it’s safe to say Mr. Van Damme was never in a legitimately good movie, and that he never gave a good performance… until now.
In an indirect way, “JCVD” reminded me of another film I saw this year, “My Name is Bruce”. Both films feature B-Movie stars (Jean-Claude Van Damme and “Evil Dead”‘s Bruce Campbell) playing fictionalized versions of themselves. Both feature these actors being thrust into a situation straight out of one of their films, and both contrast the actors’ on screen persona with their “real life” personalities. But while Campbell’s film is basically a comedic love letter to his fans, Van Damme seems to be using his film in a more therapeutic way.
The fictional Jean-Claude of this film is a has been who is reduced in appearing in straight-to-video dreck in order to pay child support. He returns to Belgium and visits a post office to pick up a money order when… he walks into the middle of an armed robbery. Had this been one of Van Damme’s regular flicks, he would’ve kicked these robbers’ asses no problemo. But this isn’t one of his movies, this is “real life”, and Van Damme finds himself reduced to the role of a helpless bystander. To make matters worse, the police and the press think that he’s behind the robbery.
But the plot here is almost beside the point. This is about Van Damme taking stock of his life and career. He seems to be wondering, “Where the hell did it go wrong? When did my fans turn against me? And why?” This is a film about a man at the end of his rope, and fuck me running, Van Damme sells it. There’s a scene at the beginning of the film featuring Van Damme at a child custody hearing, in which his young daughter says she would rather live with her mother, because whenever she tells her friends who her father is, they make fun of her. It then cuts to a reaction shot of Jean-Claude, and damn if the look of hurt on his face isn’t genuine. His entire performance is a subtle and nuanced one, and he completely pulls it off. Van Damme had us all fooled these last 25 years… the son-of-a-bitch can actually act! Who the fuck woulda thunk it??!! (The fact that he mostly acts in his native tongue does help)
There is one point, however, where the script lets him down. It comes late in the movie, when Van Damme floats up over the movie’s set, and delivers a lamenting monologue directly to the camera that spells out the subtext of the film. I know what the filmmakers were partially going for with this, trying to break the fourth wall of the movie’s “reality”… but it comes off as pretentious, and the movie would be better off without it.
Overall, “JCVD” is a film about redemption. It’s about a has been regaining his former glory. Some out there buzzed about an Oscar nod for Van Damme when it first came out. While I never thought that would actually happen (seriously, people), I wouldn’t have minded much if it did. “JCVD” is the best comeback vehicle Van Damme could’ve hoped for, for it shows that the “Muscles from Brussels” has some real acting chops after all.
