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.
a shameful waste of madhouse time 