JCVD – ghost of a star
Oss!!
Exclaims Van Damme the action star in the movie JCVD (Jean Claude Van Damme)! It is not in preparation for a kick on the villains. It is rather in conclusion of a one second long monologue(to himself) that is stretched into a screen time of 5 to 10 minutes in the movie. The conclusion being the acceptance of his present state – that of a helpless victim of his situation. Not just that of a hostage in a bank robbery going awry with every passing moment – but a victim of his own success and a loss of bearings in his life. Never before have I seen a movie star reexamining himself and his career in a movie in this manner. It has always been a trend that fading stars bank on their plusses to make comeback. By default Jean Claude Van Damme – the fading action star must have made his comeback with an action movie. He makes a marked departure by coming back with a delightful and sensible movie which is also a small movie not backed by major studios. He plays himself and allows the movie to mock him, criticise him, cut him down to his actual height and in a bizarre monologue and final sequence reclaims himself all through cinema itself.
The movie directed by French algerian director Mabrouk El Mechri (Thanks Wikipedia) has a very different format to unfold a story that is about as old as hollywood itself that of a hero caught in a hostage situation in a bank. What unfolds is strangely and delightfully to our senses is new. It is a googly on the viewers as the narrative takes us for an unpredictable ride. How would a film look like if five to six units shot some events from unique angles and submitted it to the editor who puts it together one by one instead of mixing and merging the contents of the shoot? The answer is JCVD. That is how the film looks – however is that how the film was made – being just a person who watched the movie instead of a person who knows the inner workings, I dont know – but I dont care either. For this character drama in the guise of an action movie needs all its tricks to deliver the message of the 5 minute monologue from Van Damme to his fans – his apology – his acceptance of his failures. While it does that, the movie veers from the traditional (!!!) non-linear counterparts by using the non linearity for some cheeky commentary on people rather than unfolding a great mystery or plot point. Case in point being why the cab driver lady is so rude to the kids in awe of seeing Van damme in person. A point so trivial is covered by a third segment of Van Damme’s roughest day – from airport to the bank. In doing so – the movie clearly takes a dig at the public – the fans who idolize and demonize celebrities at the same time. Never has a case been made against the audience and in favour of the all powerful celebrity in such a cool manner in a movie.
The characters are the soul of any movie (thats my opinion) and in this movie characters are ones to behold. They are silly, stupid, idiotic, bungling, judgemental and weak – Yet they dont fail in the entire running time of 96 minutes to entertain us in every possible way. The characters I loved the most in this movie are:
1. Jean Claude Van Damme as himself is a revelation, his frankness and his style are uber cool. Be it the outburst in the child custody hearing or the helpessness in the cab with the driver going on a spree, or the concern for Arthur one of the hostage takers or the monologue and not to forget the cigarette kick. This guy is really cool.
2. Commissoner Bruges – Francois Damiens as the police commissioner bungling with the hostage situation where he thinks that Van Damme is the perpetrator is a comic delight! His reactions and expressions are very interesting and delightful.
3. Arthur, one of the three robbers – played by Karim Belkhadra – is another delightful character – playing the role of a fan of Van Damme faced with the situation of having to take his idol as a hostage. A very nice character – probably only character with a conflict in the movie . The humor he evokes in the initial portions and the sadness in the end – a delightful role played beautifully.
It is amazing to see a movie being everthing from a spoof on B grade action flicks and chinese directors to stars of such flickslike Steven Seagal and a direct diatribe about agents of hollywood actors and child custody lawyers ,a brief action flick, a drama andfinally ending as a man reclaiming his honour by courting prison an yet holding an integrity of its own.
This is surely not a ‘classic’ movie – but it is surely a movie that you must watch to see what a movie can be if the maker chooses to experiment and innovate with content and format. This small movie has a big heart!! A must watch!! A movie to spend time with after the time and hours have run through one of the roughest days.
Tags: El Mechri, JCVD, Jean Claude Van Damme, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Deja Vu man. Don’t tell me you don’t know it goes. Anyways, so yesterday i was watching ‘Le Proffesionnel’ which had a blurb declaring Jean-Paul Belomondo as an ‘International Action Star’ and it had a picture of him hoisting a gun and he’s balding and wrinkled and it is impossible not to think of Sly Stallone while looking at it. So the film starts off, regular Tintin in Congo stuff and you immediately get the word ‘trash’ in your head. 20mins in, I dunno how it happened, Belomondo came on his own (”He stole my cognac!”,”Joss beaumont, espionage and ass-kicking!” Oh man Oh man) kicking ass all around and the film takes a turn for some kind of depth and you realize you just gotta hand it to the French. They respect the audience, man. And i’m amped and i call up Tushar and it was generally agreed upon that what we needed was ‘JCVD’. Being brought up in the 80s one part of you just wants a film that’s kick-ass and one where you can root all the way for a barrel-chested sociopath, balding, wrinkled or otherwise. Thank God for Le proffesionnel (highly recommended to you VPJ), JCVD, Sin City, The Wrestler and bring on The Expendables.
I’ll get back on this as soon as i’m done with JCVD
@Sid- For a moment I thought you were referring to Leon (The professional) *ing Jean Reno and directed by Luc Besson. Will definitely catch up with Les Professionel. First however is ‘I Love you’.
hey fellas, I just watched JCVD after reading this article. I got to know about the movie last year but somehow never came around to actually watching it, but finally after this article came out I ended up watching it.
*********** SPOILERS BELOW ********
It blew me away, specially the 2 minute monologue that JCVD does in the post office, it is amazing stuff. His life, his drugs, the problems- I love the way he says Penthooose in that lilting french language. Soulful stuff. The contrived and the actual ending. Contrived ending being he kicking the robber in the face and the real ending being he elbowing the same and still ending up in prison for funnelling out money from the Belgium treasury. Magical Stuff.
I salute you JCVD, and will miss the action heros which were the reason I got hooked to Hollywood.
Syl, Arnie, Steven Segal ( Under Siege still a fav.) and countless JCVD not to forget the jackie chan and jet li specials over these years.
Will miss these movies once these stars either fade or grow older.
The contrived ending portion is another flash of thought he has – where the star in him wants to break out in front of the crowd. The technique (of picturising the imaginary ‘what ifs’) is a heavily used one in Indian cinema too nad in popular hollywood cinema one scene I remember is in True lies where Arnie imagines punching Bill Paxton as he is test driving the car and in the next moment he takes over the wheel and drives like crazy to scare Bill Paxton.
I loved the expression and shrug that Van Damme gives to the reported as he comes out of a court hearing in the end. That was too cool.
yeah loved JCVD and special mention has to go to soundtrack, they even made the town Schaerbeek look cool :-) ( unless it wasn;t film there as it would explain much)
Do you guys not feel that The Wrestler took away all the shine from JCVD with Mickey Rourkes comeback?
Personally speaking I do not have the heart to revisit The Wrestler but JCVD I just loooooove.
How cool was that Cigarette flicking scene?
@Yunus – Absolutely love the soundtrack
‘Modern Love’ is just too cool!!
The cigarette kicking scene is simply for the fans of Van Damme – it is a cool cool scene conceivable only by a hard core fan of JCVD, which thankfully the director is – not some kinda high cinema wielding director who simply makes JCVD into someone who he is not in the name of ‘reinventing’ the action hero. And Reinvent he does too!!