Poll Position: JCVD

I really cannot express how excited I was to see a “JCVD” poll go out last week. I haven’t seen one JCVD movie, but I’ve been meaning to. I mean he is a god damn badass. I’ve seen clips of some of his movies, and I know my dad really likes him. I went into this movie expecting a pretty action packed movie, though the movie poster looked pretty un-action oriented. But it was my first JCVD movie and I really hoped I wasn’t disappointed with this movie. See what I thought after the jump.

The story is rather interesting, and I found it appealing. Van Damme goes back to his home country of Belgium to escape Hollywood. As he gets there, he is treated like God, being praised for all he did to represent Belgium. As he tries to accept a wire transfer at the local post office. But unbeknown to him, he just walked into a hold up. Three criminals are trying to rob a post office (really? Couldn’t think of a better place to rob like lets say … a fucking bank!?). But the robbers use Van Damme to communicate with the outside world, so the cops think that Van Damme is holding the place up. See how he ass kicks his way out of this mess.

I’m going to start off by saying how disappointed I was at this movie. Maybe because I was expecting some sweet fight scenes and brilliant action. And all the fun action part was the first scene, and that was him just doing a scene in a movie. And we don’t get to see any of that anymore. So yes, there is very little action in this movie.

Van Damme is still fit and looking to kick ass. Just not in this movie.

Actually this movie is more of a hostage movie, and I don’t mind that at all. I actually really like these styles of movies, like “Phone Booth”. But nonetheless, there are two main plots in this movie: the actual hostage plot and the plot about Van Damme’s life going to the shittier ‘cause his wife is leaving him and his daughter hates him. The latter part does not interest me at all, its over dramatic and very tacky. The hostage part wasn’t so bad.

What I found extremely interesting about the hostage part is that Van Damme can’t just Van Damme his way out of this mess. He plays himself in real life, he doesn’t just play out his movie self. So he is under the whim of the criminals. But here comes the first problem, these criminals are amongst the stupidest folks I’ve ever watched. One is such a big fan of Van Damme, so big that he was going to blow him in front of the hostages. The other one is a big fat bloke, who claims to be the boss but gets whipped around by the last guy. And the last guy is a pathetic fool with a receding hair line and a ugly red jacket.

I know it seems that I am going off topic, but I really didn’t like this movie. There isn’t a lot of things to really like. Sadly a bit of that comes from the language barrier. The movie is predominantly spoken in French, which isn’t didn’t affect the movie too much until Van Damme has this monologue. Which sucked for me, ‘cause instead of looking at his facial emotions I was too busy reading the English subtitles. And so I could not get the full impact of it. One moment he is talking, the next he is balling his eyes out. I guess I should of been paying attention to French class back in school.

Coolest scene in the movie. Note the annoying camera filter which over saturates the light. 

Secondly, why is this movie shot in this annoying camera filter they have going on? It seems like they tried to make the atmosphere look gritty, but it is Belgium! This is what I think of when I think of Belgium: chocolate, sideways German flag and super awesome country to live in. Not the gritty streets of L.A. And it was so damme (see what I did there?) over used. It is like the camera director just finished his one month at the local hipster college taking filmography. The light reflections were so bright, it actually glared off Van Damme’s forehead. I am sorry, we should ban everyone from using this silly camera filter.

Thirdly, Worst. Ending. Ever. So all the hostages flee for safety after the SWAT team breaks in. Two of the men are dead and the last one, 'the boss’, is left as he holds Van Damme at gun point. Then Van Damme imagines himself breaking free and round house kicking the robber to the floor. Everyone is happy, high fives all around and I leave satisfied. But that doesn’t happen, instead he breaks free and then gets tackled by the SWAT team because he is a ‘bad guy’. But wait there’s more, later he goes to trial and is convicted for extortion. You see him in jail and his daughter comes to visit him. They exchange greetings and cut. That's it. Not sure what I expected to end this movie off, just not this horse poop.

There are a few good parts, I mean it is definitely interesting to see Van Damme act out the part of him living his normal life. And you see how pathetic his life is portrayed and they expected me to feel bad for this multi-million dollar actor. And the other good thing, let me think … the credit’s ended with a cover of David Bowie’s “Modern Love”. And it wasn’t a bad cover. So yes, those are the few good things about this movie.

To sum it all up, and if you really weren’t paying attention. This movie blows, maybe because I was expecting an awesome action movie and was given this load of artsy-hipster bull feces. But I guess some people will think this movie is good because it is “deep and emotional” and “you get to feel what Van Damme is feeling”. When I finished this movie, I was genuinely angry. I guess if you want to see an action movie, skip this. If you want to see a half decent hostage movie, you might want to check this out.

Sorry last thing I want to rant about. IMDB has comedy as a genre that is incorporated in this movie. WHERE THE HELL WAS IT?! Ugh I give up.
Can someone please recommend me a good Van Damme movie?