JCVD (2008, Belgian/Euro)

Jean-Claude Van Damme is having a really, really bad day. He’s broke, Steven Segal just beat him out for a role, and it looks as if he’s about to lose custody of his daughter. What’s a guy to do? Rob a post office?

What?

JCVD has a lot going for it – an inventive story, a star who’s willing to laugh at himself, and some pretty decent jokes. However, it seems as if the filmmakers have been spending a bit too much time studying the films of Michael Haneke and Charlie Kaufman – they want to go down the self-referential rabbit hole, that much is obvious, but they lack the chops. The movie lurches from action to comedy to melodrama without ever gaining a real sense of cohesion. Van Damme is game for all of it, and he shows skills here that I’ve not seen from him before, most likely stemming from some of the more autobiographical elements of being the biggest washed-up star Belgium has ever seen, but the tonal lurches do a disservice to him and to the story. In the hands of a more assured or experienced director, JCVD could have been a knockout. As it is, it’s a fitfully entertaining film, one that might end up giving Van Damme another shot at Hollywood.