Saturday, November 8, 2008

JCVD

by Ari

My affection for Jean Claude Van Damme is what carried me through the semi-serious, unsuccessfully satirical and faux gritty aesthetic of Mabrouk El Mechri’s JCVD, a mostly amateurish attempt to create a real drama around the troubled career of Bloodsport’s master of the dim mak (”death touch”). The disappointing thing about JCVD is how little it explores Jean Claude’s potential as a dramatic presence, instead placing the sympathetic B-star in a tedious hostage plot that has him watching from the sidelines more than showcasing his sensitive performance.

The premise is intriguing on a comedic level (Van Damme as himself in a riff on Dog Day Afternoon), but the execution lets it down by favoring a cheap thriller with pretentious notions of becoming a Tarantino film in tone and structure. The laughable title cards (”Egg falls on stone. Egg breaks” huh?) symbolize nothing other than phony artistic aspirations by a wannabe auteur. It’s a shame, really, considering the opportunity Mechri and his team had with Van Damme willing to expose himself so nakedly. We get moments of what the film could have been when they give us Van Damme at his rawest, but these moments are too few and too short, almost as if the filmmakers didn’t trust his ability to be genuinely great at what he does.

The other problem is that they dismiss one of the most essential things about Van Damme’s appeal as an actor: his oddball charm and sweet, almost innocent softness he exudes despite the tough guy image he plays into. There’s one moment that gives you a glimpse of why Van Damme is such a likable guy, an extended conversation he has with a disgruntled taxi driver who gets upset after the star tries to avoid chatting with her. The way Van Damme mends the situation is by using that unique charm that made us (or at least me) love him so much in the first place.

I’ve always felt that Van Damme displayed the greatest personality of all the B-heroes from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s (watch Double Impact or Kickboxer or even slicker fare like Timecop. This guy is working really hard to slip into character no matter how ridiculous the role or story), so to watch him hold back who he is lessens the impact of the serious dramatic moments that arise later in the film. His straight-to-the-camera monologue is when the film flirts with brilliance, however after the sequence concluded I started to wonder what the film would have been had Van Damme written the entire thing himself. It’s a monumental moment in his career, a confession of heartbreak and disappointment that lets the actor honestly and painfully discuss his ups and downs as a movie star. It’s so honest, in fact, that it seems like it’s in the wrong movie.

Van Damme’s performance is above JCVD's heist/thriller nonsense, so it’s frustrating to watch him execute subtle moments of compassion and tenderness for a movie that doesn’t really deserve them. Still, that said, I feel the few bright sequences are worthy enough to support the film in theaters because of his valiant, intimate effort as a performer. Perhaps his next project, Full Love, a personal story featuring his actual children written and directed by Van Damme (!!), will really tap into the emotion he’s so eager to express.