Film: JCVD
Release date: 2nd February 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 93 mins
Director: Mabrouk El Mechri
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Francois Damiens, Karim Belkhadra, Jean-Francois Wolff, Anne Paulicevich
Genre: Crime/Drama/Action
Studio: Revolver
Format: DVD
Country: Belgium/Luxembourg/France
As an actor, Jean-Claude Van Damme is a strange man. It is not often one could reasonably assert that, as a career has dwindled, the performances have grown better. Gone are the days of Timecop or Bloodsport - films characterised by oiled muscles and flashy action - in their place we see performances like that witnessed in Until Death: gritty, downtrodden, filthy and ultimately fantastic. JCVD is one of the latter.
JCVD tells the story of a 'real-life' Jean-Claude Van Damme as he tries to come to terms with a broken marriage, tax problems and a dwindling career. Now, initially one might read that and wonder how exactly a film so exclusively about one man's personal problems could be considered an action/crime drama. However, having established Van Damme as a hugely sympathetic character who has seen his life more or less fall apart around him, Director Mabrouk El Mechri places him in the midst an attempted post-office robbery in Belgium - an attempt to juxtapose his real-life problems (many of which are based on reality) with problems his previous characters have historically been faced with. In doing so, the film allows Van Damme a return to what he is famous for, without ever ceasing to be self-aware or relentlessly 'real'.
Working in support are Herve Sogne as the brilliantly downtrodden police lieutenant attempting to reconcile what he and the general public perceive to be going on (i.e. That Van Damme has robbed the post office) with what his better judgement is telling him. The disjointed (and occasionally outright neurotic) criminals, played by Fracois Damiens, Jean-Francois Wolffe and Karim Belkhadra, do a fine job of placing Van Damme in an apparently untenable position. Will he protect those who have also been taken hostage, let the police work it out and hope for the best, or join with the criminals in order to ease his spiralling debts? It is a question asked frequently of him, and ultimately leads to a bitter-sweet conclusion…
The star performer, without a shadow of a doubt, is Van Damme himself who, for essentially the full 97 minutes, is the focal character, and the hub around which all of the action flows - and make no mistake about it, there is action in this film. Perhaps not as much as a fan of his previous work might be used to, and perhaps not in the same style, but the film deliberately and cleverly compromises ostentatious action for a sense of realism that compliments Van Damme's portrayal of a character that is, for all intents and purposes, himself.
In fact, the action is almost below-par in some scenes, and this is not down to it being poorly executed, but merely because at times it just doesn't seem to suit the mood. Indeed, part of what makes Van Damme's character so sympathetic are the occasional day dreams he has where he fantasises about taking out all the bad guys single-handedly. This is poignantly demonstrated when, in one of the final scenes, what Van Damme's character can do is powerfully contrasted with what he as a man is capable of. This is a theme that runs right the way through the film: an attempted humanisation of someone who is so frequently (both within the film, and the wider world) viewed as a stereotype. The weakened action hero is a role that could really go both ways, but such is the power of Van Damme's performance that how we feel about his character rarely comes into question. While this may ostensibly be a film about action and crime, at its heart there lies the story of man still trapped by his past successes.
The film, set almost entirely within the shuttered-up post office, or the shop across the road which becomes the base of operations for Sogne, attempts to establish a claustrophobic atmosphere in order to compound what is going on inside the protagonists mind. It is always ambitious to limit oneself so directly in terms of where you can shoot (although recording actually took place across Belgium, Luxembourg and France); however, the setting occasionally feels too drab. That is not to say that the attempt at realism doesn't work, just that the best moments of the film are the parts where Van Damme revisits former glories in his own mind. Never is this more evident than during the films finest moment when a nearly-broken-but-still-fighting Van Damme turns to the camera and delivers a heart-breaking soliloquy about his life, drugs, infidelity and money. It is as enthralling as it is tragic, and could only have been delivered by a man such as Van Damme; someone who has experienced first-hand and can therefore imbue it with real emotion. This and other scenes like it are what make this film more than just another low-budget action flick. One could argue that they would not work as well if they weren't so starkly contrasted with the boring, real-life interior of the post office set, but it would have been nice to have more of them.
As a 15 certificate, one might expect JCVD to deliver slightly more bang for your buck in terms of action, so those who are hoping for a straight-up guns-blazing kind of film might be better suited to some of Van Damme's previous work. However in terms of acting talent on show, quality of writing and emotive content, it is hard to be dissatisfied with what it offers.
Rarely do former action-stars branch out as brilliantly as this and, although the film is not without its flaws, JCVD provides proof that the ‘Muscles from Brussels’ is as much heart as he is biceps. JC
