JCVD

JCVD is not just about a comedy/drama post office heist job that he stumbles into in mid-progress. Playing himself we don’t see the young; Universal Soldier, Bloodsport, Kickboxer and Legionnaire. We see an ageing actor whose films have gone straight to DVD, losing custody of his daughter and not getting the lead roles that he so desires. JCVD in some way is a semi-autobiographical look into Jean Claude’s personal life set in a fictional scenario of a post office heist that turns into a hostage situation that he gets the blame for. JCVD truly is a fascinating personal insight into Jean Claude Van Damme and his performance in JCVD is genuinely not acting any more but instead he’s pouring his heart out. We don’t see our beloved ass kicking action hero in JCVD but we see a self-loathing man that I grew up to believe was the world’s most dangerous man alive today. JCVD shows instead of a man who is “wasted mentally and physically”.

One of the most grippingly chilling raw scenes in JCVD is when Van Damme breaks the fourth wall and begins to confess to the audience how Van Damme himself had to fight his own battles within. Explaining how before he stood by and live as a peaceful warrior. Learning karate and Dojo he lived by the samurai code “Oss” but living in the US, focusing on movies and living the star dream of fancy hotels, hanging out beautiful models and earning millions. In the end he truly regretted having his dream come true “You made my dream come true. I asked for it.” But the biggest disappointment for himself was he never did live up to his own promise. Van Damme became a living lie of his own philosophical code. The topic of his drug addiction comes into play. Discussing how having everything he ever dreamt of as a thirteen year old boy wanting to be a star. Travelling the world, staying at countless hotels and living in a penthouse there’s always something more and so he tried it and got hooked. Our “Van-Damme, the beast, the tiger in a cage, the "Bloodsport" man got hooked”.

JCVD is truly an open book to a confession of man who is just emotional exhausted and is just throwing in the towel. Whenever I watch a Van Damme film I personally see his films as a unique genre of his own.  Of course Van Damme films were always typical cliché actions fighting films of him getting revenge on a fallen brother or friend. For decades Van Damme’s films went straight to DVD but the performance in JCVD gave him a worldwide cinematic release and boosted our kickboxer to a new emotional level that he needed to give such a captivating show.  Even though Van Damme has been acting for years I personal feel that that JCVD has now put him on the map for a bigger and higher budget films like our other beloved action hero’s Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger.