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Under discussion:

Hard Target  (1993)

JCVD  (2008)

At face value, JCVD sounds like a lot of fun. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a version of himself in this fictional film, and it opens with an extremely over the top action sequence. Van Damme slugs, knifes, and kicks his way through all of the action in one take, only to have part the set fall apart when another actor closes the door. He pleads with the bored director that he’s old and he can’t do it in one take. The director ignores him and hurls darts into a photo of the Hollywood sign. Symbolism, anyone?

Unfortunately, the film derails so suddenly that you’ll check yourself for nosebleed. It moves from a campy farce into what you can only assume is a semi-autobiographical film that takes places half in the fantasy mind of director Mabrouk El Mechri, and half inside the warped opinion that Jean-Claude has of himself. Either that or director and star decided to get together and reinvent the old Jean-Claude as the new Jean-Claude. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

After the opening scene, we find out that Van Damme is embroiled in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife over their daughter, and daughter doesn’t want to live with daddy because the other kids at school make fun of her when her dad is on tv. Why? Because he babbles like a self-important loon. He’s employed an expensive law firm in Los Angeles to help him with the case, but his last check to them bounced, and he’s forced to take a role in yet another low-budget kickfest film to try and get an advance. When that does work out, he heads to the bank to make a withdrawal.

In the bank, Van Damme finds himself in the middle of a bank robbery that isn’t going very well, and the cops actually think he’s the one robbing the bank. Soon a crowd grows outside when the word leaks, and the rest of the film is a standoff between the cops and the bank robbers, with Van Damme stuck in the middle. Things grow increasingly tense and unhinged, and in a truly bizarre sequence not long before the climax, Van Damme literally floats off of the floor above the scene, past the lights and boom mics, and addresses the camera directly. In a tearful confession, he says that he’s accomplished nothing in his life, that all of his fame, film roles, drug usage, marriages, and money means nothing. If you caught the finale episode of HBO’s Extras, then you saw Ricky Gervais of all people do something similar in a much more effective and touching way. Without the floating.

Van Damme returns to earth and he saves the day, frees the hostages, and in one ending he literally kicks one of the bad guys unconscious. However, that’s yet another fantasy sequence, and ultimately it is revealed that he’s serving a short jail sentence due to the events, which really makes no sense. Much like the rest of the movie. He’s happy in prison, teaching karate lessons, and his daughter comes to visit him in what is meant to be an emotional scene. Unfortunately, it falls flatter than the wall in that opening sequence.

I’m admittedly not the biggest Van Damme fan, but back in the day I had a soft spot for fare like Hard Target (hey, it was John Woo’s first American film), and Timecop. On paper it sounded like this film was going to be a lot campier than it was, but it appears to be some sort of a confession for Van Damme, and a very expensive letter from a fan to one of his idols. There were admittedly a few funny moments in the beginning, but those quickly began to taper off as the movie tried to take itself too seriously.

Diehard JCVD fans will probably love this film, and there was an enormous line outside of the theater for this film at its midnight opening. Any time Jean-Claude’s name was mentioned during the introduction, hundreds of audience members howled in delight. There wasn’t nearly as much howling when the film was over.

John Malkovich enjoyed a particularly high spike in popularity and geek credit when he appeared in Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich, but he’s been in more than 20 films since then and he hasn’t managed to have that lightning strike twice.

He was excellent as the poseur art teacher in the otherwise disappointing Art School Confidential, and while he turns in a great performance in Burn After Reading, neither one stands above anything else he’s done. Maybe he should actually try playing a jewel thief to see what he can do with that role. Find out what he thought about working with the Coens and dropping the f-bomb a lot in the interview after the break.

This role seemed like a real workout for you, was that the case?

Oh, I enjoyed it very much.  No, I wouldn’t say it was more or less of a workout than usual.  Particularly with the script…there is nothing to change or improv with a good script.  You just do it.  There is a reason that a football field has boundaries.  There are a million ways to do a good script within those boundaries.  Then you play with those and it was a delight.

You’re also here in the festival in Disgrace. What was it like playing a character or characters who aren’t as intelligent as yourself?

You might want to clarify that I’m here in ‘Disgrace’.  I’m not really here in disgrace or shame.  Well, I would never say a character is more or less intelligent than I am.  I just don’t think of it that way.  I read what they do and when the writing is good it gives you a fairly clear notion of how they see the world.  Then it’s just a matter of collaborating with people you’ve never worked with before.  There is the give and take of how they work, how they view things, and how you do.  You develop a kind of language.  Usually that can be developed pretty quickly and readily. I never think ‘Oh, is this man brighter or less bright than I am?’

We have the great misfortune to hear some excerpts from his book in the film.  Yes, I did say ‘That’s not a book I would rush out and buy.’  I feel like it’s something I could do without, but I haven’t written a book myself.  I really shouldn’t comment probably.  As far as Disgrace goes, I am mistrustful of going somewhere as complicated as present or past days South Africa and saying anything that would make someone believe that I understood it, or had something important to say.  I liked it very much there.  I found it unimaginably beautiful.  Of course it’s also sad and difficult as well.  My basic feeling about it was very hopeful.

What was it like working with the Coen Brothers?

I think that among the things that for me were delightful was first of all you are working with people who have made really, really fun things.   That’s always exciting and inspiring and calming.  They run a very calm set, a fun set, and partially because they are both very good.  Because there are two of them nothing gets out of the infield.  Things are seen, things are noted, things are remarked upon.  That isn’t always the case in a movie.  I think that Tilda and Brad would agree that a lot of times you can go days and days wondering if the director or directors saw that take, or any other take.  Do they have any kind of feeling about it whatsoever.  Sadly the answer to that could often, at least ostensibly appear to be, no.  They haven’t seen it.  That’s not the case with this.  Not many actors put on the same plays in their garage by themselves, without an audience.  It sort of presupposes that somebody has to be watching.  They are watching.

You get a lot of mileage out of the f-bomb in this movie, what was that like?

Profanity, most specifically the f bomb, is not as expressive as doo doo, but it’s an incredibly expressive word.  It can really mean anything or nothing, and everything in between. (Editor’s note: it sure can) It’s always fun to draw on that.

• Bangkok Dangerous opened with only $7.8 million over the weekend, but on the upside it still topped the box office chart and it was still better than Nic Cage’s last non-National Treasure movie, Next. Far more embarrassing is Babylon A.D.’s 58% drop and College’s 55% drop in their second week, as well as Hamlet 2’s 52% drop in its second week in an already disappointing attempt at wide release.
• Perhaps the Bard will have better luck with Paramount’s announced adaptation of the young-adult novel Spanking Shakespeare, which actually has even less to do with the playwright than Hamlet 2 does.
• The obvious pitch: Braveheart in Egypt. Will Smith is playing Taharqa, a pharaoh who led battles against the eventually successful Assyrian invaders, in The Last Pharaoh. Randall Wallace is currently writing a new draft of the project, and hopefully Smith is hard at work on the “Walk Like an Egyptian”-sampling plot song.
• Another soundtrack moment waiting to happen: “Hot for Teacher” playing as Jessica Alba becomes a second-grade math teacher in Marilyn Agrelo’s An Invisible Sign of My Own.
• Just as the latest Coen brothers film is about to open, the previous is back in the news. Unfortunately, it’s because Tommy Lee Jones is suing Paramount for more than $10 million, which he claims he’s owed for No Country for Old Men.