Macho action heroes
generally aren't given to self-deprecation, which would undermine their all-important
air of steely impenetrability; betraying any sign of weakness, anything beyond
determination or anger, makes them seem too human. With that in mind, it's a
shock and relief to see the many faces of Jean-Claude Van Damme, the "muscles
from Brussels," in JCVD, a canny piece of autobiography that looks at the man behind
the legend and the legend behind the man. A decade ago, such a film would be
inconceivable for a bankable star like Van Damme, but the new century has left
him floundering in straight-to-DVD purgatory, and JCVD finds him in a mood to
laugh it off, and in the process, perhaps reinvent himself.
It never gets better than
the spectacular opening shot—a long, extravagantly choreographed take à
la Touch Of Evil
that has Van Damme the movie star kicking, punching, and shooting his way
through multiple bad guys coming at him with machine guns, grenades, and even a
flamethrower. Though impressive enough as a Spike Jonze-style music-video
stunt, the shot is enhanced by some deliberate mistakes—punches missing
by half a foot, stuntmen botching their cues by a beat or two—that
underline how Van Damme, once an international superstar, has fallen on hard
times lately. That feeling is confirmed later, when Van Damme is seen in an
L.A. courtroom engaging in a brutal losing custody battle over his preteen
daughter. Once he's back in his Brussels hometown, his luck gets even worse
when he becomes a hostage (or suspect?) in a post-office robbery.
That dynamite opening
sequence, and the two or three scenes that follow, promise something like Van
Damme's 8 1/2,
a freeform journey into the star's cult of personality and the inevitable bleed
between his screen persona and his real life. But the excitement gradually
diminishes when the robbery, which initially seems like a pit-stop, instead
becomes a permanent stall-out. Granted, there are some effective, often
hilarious bits of flashback—like the DVDs and Van Damme karate moves
listed as evidence against him at the custody trial—but save for a remarkable
single-take monologue directly to the camera, the film's self-reflexive moments
disappear. And once that happens, JCVD looks too much like the recent duds from
which Van Damme hopes to extricate himself.