Movies I’m watching: JCVD

I’ve been waiting for this film for a long time. It’s a film where Van Damme plays himself, or rather, a version of himself. There are plenty of things taken from his real life–his career as an action star, his marital problems, drinking, drugs, etc. However, all of this is a backdrop for a fictional story about what happens when Van Damme, out of money and needing some cash to pay for lawyers’ fees, ends up going to a bank in Brussels…and to say more would spoil it. Suffice it to say that the movie’s plot is nothing unique, but the execution is quite good. Imagine, it asks, what would happen if a well-known action movie star ended up being a action movie type situation, where his life was endangered. How would his martial arts skills, or his fame and notoriety play into this whole thing?

The film has a desaturated look, with a lot of dark blues, greens, and grays. It goes with my image of Brussells, I suppose. Van Damme is showing his years, and that’s what makes the performance that much more poignant. As other reviews and previews have alluded to, there are some postmodern, speaking to the camera asides, and for the most part, this is done without being annoying. In fact, most people believe that the one to the camera monologue that JCVD has is, in fact, the highlight of the movie. I don’t completely agree with that, but it definitely shows off something more raw and real than you are used to from someone known as the Muscles of Brussels. And i think that’s a good thing, because in my mind, fact and fiction are blurred, and I want the best for both the JCVD and the real Jean Claude Van Damme*.

*In the movie, when asking for money to be wired to him, he tells us his “real name,” not his acting name.

Movies I’ve Watched: In Bruges

In Bruges Movie Reviews, Pictures – Rotten Tomatoes

If you take a cursory look at what the people on Rotten Tomatoes are saying you’d find htat most people have a generally positive take on this film, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes. I don’t know if I could anymore that hasn’t already been said by people who actually get paid to write about film. Personally, I enjoyed watching Ralph Fiennes and Colin Farrell the most. Colin Farrell has a comic flair that isn’t always well exploited in the Hollywood movies he does, where he’s paid to be dark, manly, sexual, and tough. His character in Bruges is isn’t short on machismo but that’s not the main thing, by far: it’s a personal crisis he has after accidentally killing a young boy after his first hit–on a priest no less–goes somewhat awry. What I like about him, though, is how stupid and opinionated he is (especially regarding the topic of midgets, a topic that seems to really fascinate him). Ralph Fiennes was intriguing for the same reason: he got to play against type. He plays a gangster boss that’s strangely religious (if you kill a little boy by accident, you ought to commit suicide right there and then–as if the murder of innocent children was that much worse than the murder of adults) and who follows his particular code of honor and ethics to the tee. I would bet that the image of Ralph Fiennes that most of us have etched in our minds is one of the quintessential Englishman. He’s elegant, educated, diffident and reserved–and yet underneath that surface there is something very sensitive, something smoldering–and the mystery of what that is varies with each character he has, but is what makes him so compelling to watch (insofar as you might think he’s compelling to watch).

However, when we first meet Fiennes’ character in this movie, it’s through his voice on the other side of the phone, and not his person. When I heard his voice I whispered to my girlfriend that must be Michael Caine in a cameo, because the voice was so Cockney and dirty. But of course, it was Fiennes talking, and that’s what so fun about his character–he got to be so bad, but not without sacrificing the intelligence and refinement to each character that he plays. I just don’t think he’d be able to play a completely inane, macho type gangster even if they decked him out with fake muscles. He’s just too sensitive looking.

Anyway, the film is dark comedy and has a few twists and turns, nothing special, nothing hard to follow. In terms of pacing it keeps an even keel, with plot points and jokes interspersed quite evenly, which makes it that much more enjoyable. Check it out–entertaining and funny in that inimitable British way.