JCVD stands for Jean-Claude Van Damme, a.k.a. The Muscles from Brussels. But this isn’t a documentary, or even a typical action vehicle for the Belgian star. An unusual mix of heist movie, biopic, and fantasy, it is rather a sort of speculative celebrity deconstruction.

Van Damme plays himself, a down on his luck actor unable to get a quality role and losing a custody battle for his young daughter. He returns to his hometown of Brussels to re-anchor his life, and finds himself in a post office robbery/hostage situation. Making matters worse, it appears to the police that he is the perpetrator, a development the real criminals use to their advantage.

This all seems like it might be an action star’s fantasy come true–an opportunity to be a true hero and save lives. Van Damme, in the film, certainly considers this aspect, but also realizes that events will never unfold the way he imagines they might. So he cooperates with the robbers and speaks to the police on the phone, re-inforcing the impression that he’s the culprit, meanwhile begging them to release the other hostages. A huge crowd gathers outside for the spectacle, and even his parents arrive to figure out what their son is doing.

It all makes for an interesting pseudo-factual look at Van Damme. The action even stops altogether at one point and he is literally lifted away from the scene and delivers a long soliloquy about his past drug abuse, multiple marriages, and his troubled history with his own fame.

Even the custody battle is drawn from his true life, though his son was changed to a daughter for this story. The only thing that really puzzles me is the ending. Maybe I need to watch it again, but I couldn’t quite figure out how Van Damme ends up where he does. Perhaps his fate is symbolic of celebrities on trial in the gossip press, which so often trumps the real legal system. – [DVD]

Comedy/Crime/Drama

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 4/28/09

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