JCVD (2008)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Best movie ever!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

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

JCVD (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a struggling B-movie action actor trying to maintain some artistic integrity despite everyone around him. He has custody problems and returned from family court in LA. He has been sleepless for 2 days. He goes into the bank and shots ring out. He's taken hostage but the cops think that he's the hostage taker.JCVD shows some acting chop or he's tapping into his inner self. It's so fascinating that he is such a mess. It's also a mess that isn't unrealistic. There is a bit of action but that's not the heart of this movie. It is to watch JCVD break down his public image and then break down his character. The movie could use an A-list actor to be the bad guy as his foil. Nevertheless this is one of the greatest performance from JCVD ever.

JCVD attempts to deconstruct the action genre and contrast the life of a washed up action star and his cheesy movies but fails in its ambition. The plot is extremely convoluted: Jean Claude plays a fictionalized version of himself and is caught in a hostage situation at a post office/bank in his hometown in Belgium. The non-chronological order muddles the movie further, presenting key scenes after the fact; we aren't even made aware whether or not Jean Claude is the hostage taker or himself a hostage until the middle of the movie. Great movies like Memento can make mixed chronology an asset but director Mabrouk El Mechri is no Christopher Nolan.There are some parts of this movie that work. Jean Claude is very effective playing himself as a washed up actor with deep financial and personal problems. Watching him deal with cynical directors, his sleazy manager and his seemingly downhill custody battle for his daughter is entertaining but this is unfortunately the subplot to the awful clichéd hostage situation that drags on and has no dramatic tension.A much better movie could have been made just about Van Damme visiting his hometown as he does in this movie while dealing with his personal and career problems. The whole hostage situation cuts into a good premise like a chainsaw and destroys it. I can only imagine some sort of interference either from distributors or Van Damme himself shoehorned this ridiculous plot into the story. This is definitely a sub par movie but it at least shows Van Damme and El Mechri do have potential for an excellent film in them.

Who would have thought it? Jean-Claude Van Damme in a post-modern meta-movie (at least that's what I think they call this kind of thing) in which he plays himself with brutal honesty as an ageing action star caught up in a real-life hostage situation. And who would have thought that it could possibly be this good?Not me, that's for sure, but here it is, JCVD, a brilliantly original film starring the Muscles from Brussels as we've never seen him before—as a believable human being—one with real-life problems and a troubled past who has absolutely no desire to get himself killed when confronted by desperate gun-toting criminals.With the Belgian superstar playing Van Damme the man rather than Van Damme the action hero, making this film is a gamble, one that risks alienating the star's existing fan-base due to a lack of slam-bang Van Damage, but hopefully it will earn him their respect—and the respect of movie-goers in general—as a bold performer willing to try something a little out of the ordinary.Told in a non-linear fashion by director Mabrouk El Mechri, this tense, funny and dramatic movie is filmed in French with subtitles, with improvised scenes of dialogue and an amazing monologue by the star that proves he can really act, all of which may even have cinema-snobs sitting up and taking note.In taking such a daring role in such a unique movie, by portraying himself as a man with flaws and weaknesses, and by acknowledging his mistakes, Jean-Claude has certainly become an even greater hero than ever before in the eyes of this particular fan.