who gives a van damme?
JCVD
You will after witnessing the rebirth of the 'Muscles from Brussels'
Jean-Claude Van Damme, aka "the Fred Astaire of karate" (according to Jean-Claude Van Damme) and "that guy who was in those martial arts action films in the 80s and 90s" (according to almost everyone else) is back with a vengeance.
In Mabrouk El Mechri's JCVD, screening in an exclusive Long Play season, the Karate King plays an ageing movie star called JCVD.
He's broke, he's making crappy action shlock that's destined to go straight to DVD (because Steven Seagal is getting all the decent parts) and he's embroiled in a bitter custody battle for his daughter (his entire filmography is used against him as proof of his unsuitability as a parent).
When he innocently finds himself caught up in a post office robbery-cum-hostage crisis, the cops and the fascinated throng that wait outside all think that their once national hero has finally gone, well, postal.
It sounds like a big farcical parody of Van Damme's persona, and it is, but at the heart of the film is the conflict between Van Damme the knuckleheaded action star and Van Damme the man.
JCVD is Van Damme's doppelgänger - the actor's real life has become fodder for gossip rags worldwide with his failed marriages, custody battles and drug and money problems. In El Mechri's film, he's a defeated yet sympathetic hulk of a man, one who is only too sadly aware of his lost potential.
"It's hard for people not to judge me", Jean-Claude says. JCVD goes a long way to changing our own clouded judgements of the 'Muscles from Brussels'.
Screening details here
Published Thursday, 26 February 2009
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