JCVD

If you’ve never watched a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, if’ you’ve never cheered, laughed, ridiculed, mimicked, or idolized the Muscles from Brussels, you might not have the foundation to fully appreciate, JCVD. In my opinion, you need to have experienced Jean-Claude at the pinnacle of his career; you need to have felt the rush of momentum as he soared to super-star status, and you must have been there when his career and personal life plummeted into a spiraling tornado of despair. Yea, verily Jean-Claude has walked in the valley in the shadow of overnight success, and like so many others he has suffered a certain Hollywood death.

Cast from the Hollywood studio mainstream and thrust into the bowels of direct-to-video foreign made films, JC slipped from the tongues of moviegoers and stood as a cautionary tale against overnight stardom and pitfalls of celebrity. Drugs, several failed marriages and a constant comparison to a fellow celeb Steven Segal stained Jean-Claude’s  tenuous career.

But JC has been resurrected from the dead.

In JCVD Jean-Claude plays himself. Well…sort of. He plays our vision of him in a story line that teeters on the edge of reality and fiction. Based on equal parts truth and fable, Jean-Claude navigates the emotional labyrinth of the Hollywood diaspora that only insiders know exists. In the film JC is downtrodden, put-upon, an outcast B-movie star. Yet, he’s also hopeful, determined and holding strong to the faith and inspiration that led to his emergence from average Joe to household name.

As I said, you must have experienced Jean-Claude in his heyday. Films like Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Lionheart, Double Impact, Universal Soldier and Hard Target, made Jean-Claude. He’s credited with bringing director John Woo to the United States for Hard Target, launching John Woo’s turn to be in the Hollywood golden boy spotlight.

JVCD is a different animal. Starting with an action-packed opening sequence, done in a single long tracking shot (a la the restaurant sequence from Goodfellas) and culminating with a breach of the third-wall as the out-of-breath actor proclaims to the director, “I’m 47 years old, I can’t keep this over and over in only one take.”

The film is hilarious, inspiring, funny and clever — all at once. Even the overt in-your-face jokes and commentaries are nicely hidden in a wrapping of self-deprecation. Jean-Claude (the Jean-Claude) is brilliant in this film as is the directing. There is a uniquely brilliant final sequence which gives us a taste of what we’ve come to expect from a Van Damme movie, only to brusquely take it away with the flitter of a film reel. 

Jean-Claude has a moment in the film where he is lifted above the scene to deliver a soliloquy… or monologue — call it what you will — where he unveils so much about his life that it’s difficult to tell if this is the fictional Jean-Claude or the real Jean- Claude. And I believe it is right there that the film transcends the clutter of hopelessly poignant films about character and celebrity and becomes a film about heart.