Delight
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
Java_Joe
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.
elshikh4
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.
Bene Cumb
Jean-Claude Van Damme is a certain icon and one of the most famous Belgians in the world - even non-admirers should acknowledge this... His start as actor was not very smooth as - for a long time - he seemed stiff and the plots he was engaged were trivial and resembling. But improvements took place and Van Damme became a versatile martial actor and, the older he got, the less influence was on kicking-fighting and more on empathy and protection of the weaker. All this is nicely depicted in the film in question, where he plays a fictionalized version of himself, a burn-out action star whose family and career are at stake as he is caught in the middle of a heist in his hometown of Brussels. In line with several fatal scenes, we can snigger over police bureaucracy, thickheaded loafers and people's attitudes towards famous persons. Definitely one of the best performances by Van Damme - and different in many ways; by the way, Time magazine named his performance in the film the second best of the year.
