Internet and the 21st century have taught us at least one valuable lesson: fame comes with a price tag. Britney Spears became a poster girl for this reality in 2007, but she was far from being an isolated case. Several aging stars have to deal with problems that would never occur in the real world such as plummeting value and spotlight withdrawal. Jean-Claude Van Damme had to face these problems when the world suddenly lost interest in martial arts movies. In a savvy career move, he decided to participate in a quirky, self-aware project written especially for him by French director Mabrouk el Mechri. JCVD is a movie that clashes with everything Van Damme's brand stands for, but it a smart, crafty little piece of cinema. Sometimes, you have to find salvation in humor.
In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme is playing himself, an aging actor struggling to find satisfying work and caught in the middle of a bitter custody battle. When dropping by the bank for an emergency money deposit to his lawyers, he gets trapped in a bizarre situation. There is a heist going on, yet nobody outside the bank is aware of it. When a shot is fired, the head of the operation decides that Van Damme will get the blame while they make a run with the money. This is an extremely stupid idea, yet Van Damme goes with it because the lives of several hostages are at stake. What ensues is a quid pro quo of an uncomfortable hilarity only a French mind could've come up with.
JCVD primarily is a movie about celebrity culture. About how we love our celebrities with an abusive kind of love that is neither good for us of them. It's making a serious point, but it doesn't mean it can't be hilarious, right? The best comedies all have a focused purpose. They all laugh at something. JCVD laughs at the culture Jean-Claude Van Damme movies have created. My favourite scene is where a bank robber requests Van Damme to rip a cigarette from an hostage mouth with his trademark hook kick and attempting the same kick later. Beyond the obvious slapstick humour of the scene, I thought it highlighted the impossibility for celebrities to live in the real world.
I'm sure you can figure it out from here.
A common trait of European arthouse movies is that they are intentionally disorganized. JCVD has a looping structure that is quite original, but goes over the same things a lot. The movie is split into different parts wearing obscurely poetic names, where the point of view is shifting from a protagonist to another. I would've understood a dual point of view shifting from Van Damme to the outside world, but it's a little more complicated and I'm not sure to understand the purpose of it. There is also a heavy, gritty filter on the screen throughout the entire film. It's a self-aware, ironic filter, but I thought it ended up being visually and maybe masked a lack of photography inspiration. Ironically or not, dipping everything in gritty colours is taking the easy road.
If you're a Jean-Claude Van Damme fan with a sense of humour, you'll get a kick out of JCVD just like I did. Not everyone does, though. Several of Van Damme's fans are still to this day basement martial artists training spin kicks on a heavy bag, worshipping the several posters of their idol they plastered the walls of their house with. In that case, JCVD might laugh at you a little and call out the silliness of your adoration. It's a raw, oddly emotional comedy that exposes the gap between the high flying martial artists and the real, aging Jean-Claude Van Damme. I liked JCVD, thought it was a bold idea. It gets artsy on you, pretentious sometimes, but in general, it remains a good hearted film, a love letter to a martial arts hero from another era and an struggling movie star.