nightlydvdreviewReview - JCVD
May 27th 2009 09:43
JCVD stars Jean-Claude as himself, a washed up action star who cannot get a decent studio-backed script in order to revive his flagging career. On top of his career woes, his ex-wife is taking him to court in order to fight for the custody of their only daughter (Saskia Flanders) who is embarrassed that her father does action films for a living.
Having just flown in to Brussels, a taxi drops him off outside a dvd store. He allows the clerks in the dvd store to take some photographs as a souvenir and he enters a nearby post office. We hear gun shots. A nearby policeman rushes to the scene to see Jean-Claude blocking an open window and assumes that he is responsible for the shots. The report back to headquarters - "Central to Unit 27. Jean-Claude Van Damme's robbing a post office. I need back-up."
This initial sequence creates the premise on which the movie is based and we see how the situation occurs through discontinuous scenes and differing points of view. Jean-Claude, as it unfolds, is not responsible for the gun shots nor is he responsible for the hostage situation inside the post office. The criminals running the bungled operation decide to use the misinformation and continue to use Van Damme to fool the police into believing that he is the perpetrator. In order to safeguard the lives of those inside, Jean-Claude even goes so far as to assist the criminals by giving them tips on how to make it seem that he is responsible for the robbery.
Of course being as popular as he is - particularly in his hometown - a large crowd amasses outside the post office and the story hits the television networks as a live event. The bigger the story becomes, the more support and publicity is offered for Jean-Claude. Even his parents are called to the scene to try to talk him down and persuade him to let the hostages go. As difficult as it is for him to carry on the pretence, he maintains the farce that he is the ringleader in order to keep the safety of those involved.
Any actor who can poke fun of their persona is a big person indeed and at one stage the movie makes way for a monologue where Van Damme discusses the ups and downs of being a celebrity and how this affected his real life identity. As much as it was interesting to watch from an acting point of view, the monologue didn't sit well with me, as it seemed to interrupt the events that were going on around him.
Filmed in JCVD's native tongue, Jean-Claude plays himself very well and despite the fact that he may be getting a little old in the tooth to continue with the roles that made him so famous (he himself states this in the film), this film has certainly given me a new appreciation for his talents.
Voyage Review: 3.5/5
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