Unless you've managed to get yourself elected governor of California, things ain't what they used to be for an aging action star. Witness the troubled life of one Jean-Claude Van Damme: sued by his wife for custody of his only child, barely able to pay his lawyers, and, to add insult to injury, losing parts to Steven Seagal. Returning home, the jetlagged Muscles from Brussels just wants to pick up some cash at the post office; next thing he knows, he's being held captive by a band of small-time criminals, while the outside world thinks it's the washed-up dojo master who's decided to embark on a life of crime.
Believe it or not, in many critics' eyes the most widely acclaimed film coming out of Cannes was none other than the latest star vehicle by sometimes Vancouver resident Jean-Claude Van Damme. But this is no
Knock Off--yes, the usual Van Dammage is present, especially in the virtuoso first shot. But both the film JCVD--superbly directed by French filmmaker Mabrouk El Mechri--and Jean-Claude himself deliver on a wide range of emotions. Alternately comic, melancholy, tense and tear-jerkingly dramatic, this mega meta-movie parody shows us what the (true) last action hero has been trying to convince us of for all these years: this guy can act, and in his native French, no less. The gripping plot is faintly modelled on
Dog Day Afternoon, but structured in a manner that twists, builds and climaxes, repeatedly. Van Damme, this is one good movie!
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