JCVD
was the nicest little hardboiled heist movie I've seen in a while.
It's metafictional, but not evasive and ironically annoying. Human,
but not cloying. It's more Dog
Day Afternoon
than Being
John Malkovich.
It's smart. It's tight. It's grounded. It's achingly well-written and
well-performed with a green and white, slightly overexposed look that
looks pretty nice and reminds me of 1970s crime dramas. And while I
think the experience can survive spoilers, I'm glad that I saw it not
knowing much about the plot. In some
ways, JCVD isn't all that
different from other Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. Sure he's
Jean-Claude Van Damme and he's not a cyborg or a legionnaire or
twins. But it's always seemed like Jean-Claude Van Damme was
visible in his movies and, like I was saying before, his movies have
a simple human core.
The
goals of Van Damme's movies have often been small ones compared to
the executive decisions of many other action films. Thinking
back over his movies, he's often fighting for only at most a handful
of people. Saving one person or trying to get back home seem corny
compared to disarming nuclear weapons or destroying _____ rings
(chose your “War” of the moment). Then again, these small, human
goals are often the very ones central to more respectable art house
cinema. Mabrouk el Mechri and Jean-Claude Van Damme set these
same kind of motivations for their screen Jean-Claude Van Damme. There are
conversations, but there is also kicking.
I'm
pleased that el Mechri and Van Damme didn't rely solely on shocking
audiences out of their prejudices about Jean-Claude Van Damme. They
didn't ignore these prejudices—American or European—either, not
with that stunning opening action sequence (1 take!) or the televison
spewing clips of Jean-Claude Van Damme's famous "aphorisms" about
being “aware” or “1 + 1 = 11.” And the reel devoted to Van
Damme's improvised fiercely beautiful monolog almost takes back these
recycled clips and puts them in a context Van Damme and a sympathetic
(in the best sense of the word) el Mechri have control over.
If anyone shouldn't be surprised that an action star turns out to be
more than his movies, it should be fans of genre. But
we often have the worst prejudices. The younger, more foolish Carol
was a total snob about Westerns. Now I'm so excited about The
Burrowers
and The
Good, the Bad and the Weird
it's almost embarrassing. Not to mention my growing collection of
Western comics by Bubba
Ho-Tep
screenwriter, Joe R. Lansdale.
And
there's the same simple bravery in Jean-Claude Van Damme's message to
the Midnight Madness audience. He sent us all a hug. Cheesy? Maybe.
Sentimental? I guess I don't much
care anymore. But it's as sincere and as brave as putting
your body on the line at 47 to entertain a crowd of fans. So I hug you back, Jean-Claude.
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