JCVD is an edgy, often funny mix of true life and movie life, craftily directed by a 30-year-old genre fan around the personage widely known as The Muscles from Brussels. Jean Claude Van Damme brings battle-worn charisma and amazing frankness to the eponymous role of an aging, perpetually derided action star. He also brings the addiction issues, the bitter custody battles, the money problems, the lousy roles in straight-to-DVD movies, and the scrambled zen philosophizing that have made him a national joke in his native Belgium. When he’s taken hostage in a hold-up there, all and sundry assume that he’s the perpetrator, finally gone completely psycho. As the media circus amps up, action guy confronts the meaning of life: can he kick his way out of this mess without a script? [source: World Cinema Showcase 2009]
I apologise, we feel bad, but there's no trailer available. ~Ed.
Forget Micky Rourke ‘wrestling’ with his demons, this is the comeback of 2009. For too long, the fallen star of Street Fighter and Time Cop - Jean-Claude Camille Francois Van Varenberg has been ‘starring’ in D-grade direct-to-DVD action movies shot in places like Bulgaria. Amazingly, this not only proves he still has the moves but also the nous to go with it. Writer-director Mabrouk El Mechri allows the muscles from Brussles opportunities to pack an emotional punch as well as uppercuts and haymakers. Whether it’s his insistence that he was the one who gave the West John Woo, claimed that he never killed an Arab onscreen (unlike his rivals) or his regret at being a former prima donna of the penthouse, Van Damme's confessional and self-deprecating demeanour is likely to win him a whole army of new admirers.
As well as slickly choreographed action scenes and a surprisingly unglossy palette, El Mechri makes great use of hand-held cameras to add realism and creates a slightly fractured narrative (the same pivotal scene is seen from different points of view a la Rashomon) to heighten interest. Then there's the rich vein of black humour running through the movie - one of the highlights being the sight of the cops arguing in their temporary base in the adult section of a video store.
Justly Causing Volte-face Decisions about the big fella's career.
By James Croot, Flicks.co.nz
Well, never thought I'd ever enjoy a Jean Claude movie so much as this (guilty pleasures TIME COP and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER aside!) Mabrouk El Mechri delivers the impossible - a film in which JCVD acts - yeah, I know, really! By turns witty, moving, intelligent - all the words you'd never imagined seeing in a review of a Van Damme movie. It's post, post modern. Van Damme plays Van Damme and it all goes Van Damme. The scene in which he talks direct to camera and we rise up in the air above the set is a showstopper - I swear those are REAL tears in JCVD's eyes - not CGI! Far more entertaining and jaw-dropping than a hundered Van Damme action flics - this really is remarkable. And the DVD contains an excellent behind the scenes doco that plays out like a parallel "JCVD" movie. Well worth getting into - put up with the first 20-minutes, give yourself up to the central conceit and it's a damme ball! Five stars just for the sheer balls of it! It should never have worked - but it DAMME WELL DOES!
Absolutely brilliant - characters are fantastic and JCVD is so good playing himself. Parents are lovely too.
As a fan from childhood, i (and my husband) greedly watch anything JCVD makes, but this movie is sooo very different to his norm. I beleive it shows he has a depth to him that he fustratingly couldnt show in his other movies :)
JOHN CLAUDE VANN DAMN is an inspiring insane film!
Van Damme says worse things about himself than critics would dream of saying, and the effect is shockingly truthful.
Seems like a spoof at first glance but this proves to be a compelling Post-modern thriller with gumption.
JCVD should entertain both movie and action buffs. Van Damme proves once and for all that he's not just a set of glistening pectorals. However, he's still in no danger of being asked to play Hamlet.
The giddy near-brilliance of its central conceit is squandered by flat execution.
Some of this is affecting, some of it tedious, and the film's inconsistencies of tone are made more glaring by its peculiar look.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 4th Jun 2009.
Release date: June 4th 2009.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
