Expected more

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Jean-Claude Van Damme was never a huge movie star. He was known for cheap B-movies that showed off his abilities as a former champion kickboxer. They had a lot of fights, him doing the splits and trying to speak English.Most of them are forgettable. Bloodsport springs to mind as one of his better movies. But while he was known, he wasn't really considered an actor. That is, until now.He puts in a genuinely touching performance as a semi-fictionalized version of himself going through a bit of a mid-life crisis and seeing his world slowly crumbling around him. There's a nasty divorce, it shows his past where he was doing cocaine, he's going broke and the only way to live is to continue making bad B-movies. Even his daughter is ashamed of him because she gets teased a lot in school simply for having his last name.What follows is an interesting plot and some extremely well done acting by the Muscles from Brussels. It's not just a stupid martial-arts movie. It's his life.

I try to enter every movie with an open mind. I bailed on this one after 20 minutes.

J.C.V.D. is not a Jean Claude Van Damme movie whatsoever, no more than its namesake. There are no drawn out fight scenes, no car chases, and certainly no bad one-liners. Instead, the film is a hybrid, a meta-film, going beyond documentary, documentary, or full blown narrative. If I were to categorize it as anything, it would be a documentary of a documentary since it isn't afraid to break the fourth wall and does so on many occasions. The narrative is broken up, flipping back and forth if not only for the element of short lived mystery. It is not a character study since Van Damme is almost too well known for that, rather it is reenactment of his life dramatized for Hollywood. It doesn't matter if the story is true or not, the important thing is that Van Damme makes it real. Obviously drawing from his real life experiences, he pours his heart into his cinematic counterpart and proves to the world that he can flex his acting muscles just as well as he can flex his biceps, if not better now in his old age. Van Damme humanizes himself in a way that we have never seen. In a power and telling scene where Van Damme literally is lifted above the fourth wall, he explains to the camera his inglorious life and career, full or mistakes, drugs, and heartbreak. It brings a heart to those action films of yesteryear, of a past where things were simpler and a present where retrospection, as well as introspection, only leads to heartache.This film speaks about the power of the celebrity and the quick to judge public. It brings to light the blood thirsty court system once it has a celebrity to make it famous. And it shows that not all of these superstars are the personalities we see on film. That they are normal people thrust into extraordinary situations with nothing to do but buckle under the pressure of the public. But beyond the serious nature of J.C.V.D. there are plenty of Easter eggs to be found for those pure action fan boys. References to all of his previous work and signature high kicks are spread throughout the film that give it it's humor while the performances and solid writing attribute to many laughs as well.The opening sequence of J.C.V.D. perfectly captures the message it is broadcasting to our time. It features an action sequence where Van Damme is out of breath and sloppily taking out soldiers while the stunt men and actors alike exhibit their heartless effort for a pay check in the film industry while the director throws darts at a picture of Hollywood. It lacks all the magic of his work while accentuating the cheesiness to a point where the fake film is a mirror image of the action industry today. And as Van Damme tries to catch his breath and lobby for a better film, he can only walk away in disgust of what his beloved career has become. J.C.V.D. is a film that knows what it is and what it is trying to say. Yet it somehow goes beyond that to become something more. It breaks down and then raises up one of the most famous action stars of all time only to show him in one of his best roles. Himself. It is not a tribute to those days gone by where I would rent six Van Damme movies and watch the rest of the afternoon away, it is more. It is a fun, funny, entertaining, and a damn good film. One thing is for sure, I will never look at Van Damme the same way again, and that is a great thing.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is an action figure. His career lived its blaze between the late 1980s and the late 1990s. Because after that, and due to his personal problems and drug addiction, Van Damme didn't find work unless, mostly, in the "V" movies, where he continued his career yet on a less big level.The thing is Van Damme wanted to assure his acting capacities some times, as in Nowhere to Run (1993), and In Hell (2003). Or while doing 2 different roles in movies like Double Impact (1991), and Replicant (2001). Of course he's not Robert De Niro, though at least he tried to be someone else Jean-Claude Van Damme.Here, he is someone else Jean-Claude Van Damme. He's Jean-Claude Van Damme, the human being. Actually, the man wanted to be frank with himself, apologize to his audience for his sins, get purged, and maybe get the producers trust again, all in a form of a heist thriller comedy. Seems good ambition, but good intentions are never enough alone !The script couldn't be that hot heist thriller comedy. The thriller part was lame; since the evil gang wasn't menacing, the exciting situations weren't exciting, and the last third of the movie was a perfect haphazard, with everything solving itself in almost farcical manner. And the comedy part was lazy and unsatisfying. It causes couple of smiles here and there, and that was it !The JCVD judging JCVD part wasn't well-made. The movie's drama doesn't lead to it appropriately. So this is why the famous 6 minutes monologue seemed out of context and somehow inserted. The title character wasn't on the verge of death to confess, or put in moral dilemma to emotionally explode. It's clear that this movie's drama didn't provide much after its initial situation of real action star misunderstood in a "Dog Day Afternoon" bank robbery, whether in terms of exploring deeply the lead character, or spicing up that "Dog Day Afternoon" thriller !Save the conversation between Van Damme and the taxi deriver, the matter of letting the movie's cast improvise their dialog didn't work. The side characters weren't treated fairly; you won't remember any of them after the viewing. The acting of the evil team was a cross between dull and silly. I absolutely didn't get the matter of chartreuse image for all the time. Perhaps it's a way to separate this movie in specific from all Van Damme's other movies, by looking more realistic and expressing some depression. But even if, making the whole thing with this color pushed the movie to be visually boring, and ended up as artistic more than meaningful !As for the Pros : Van Damme's acting was distinctly truthful, though with not so right script. It's like hearing the best voice with the wrong song, or not complete song in the first place. The first third of the movie is its best; with the intro's long-one-shot fighting scene, the court scene, and some of the dialog and thrill during the bank robbery's start. Dealing with Van Damme as usual human being, without any super halos, was this movie's true achievement. He's here a shattered man and father who happens to be an international symbol of never defeated man. It's notable how the movie uncovers the painful reality beneath the comfortable fakeness. And finally, loved the pure ambition of Van Damme's own life's drama mixed with heist thriller comedy, despite not carrying it out thoroughly. (JCVD), the movie, tried to present JCVD, the movie star, as a desperate mundane man in a thriller comedy, which adds more to the power of JCVD the movie star. The problem is that it couldn't be catchy or solid thriller comedy, however added some to the power of JCVD. Yes, I loved its ambition, but it was incomplete. Compared to similar ambition, which provides a real life movie star who's confessing his faults and regretting them, a genre movie, and thorough executing for both matters; then Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003) is more perfect.