JCVD

The first movie we watched together and the impetus for our JCVD project we carry special sentimentality for this film.

Overall VD Rating: 10 (+X bonus points for plot, artistry, cinematography, and surprisingly beautiful monologues)

JCVD Exposure: 10

There is no pectoral exposure per se, but the t-shirt he spends most of the movie wearing and the page boy cap and sunglasses he wears the rest of the time are strangely seductive. The movie focuses on him to such a degree that you forget at moments you are watching JCVD play the character of JCVD and begin to imagine you are getting to know the man JCVD. This has the effect of making him more sympathetic and more thoughtful while simultaneously his slightly tongue-in-cheek portrayal endears him in a way no child of Bloodsport or Kickboxer would have believed possible.

There is no sexy time.

Amazingly enough we are scoring this a 10 based almost entirely on his emotive opportunities and the genuine sincerity with which he pulls it off. One particularly moving moment occurs during a meta-theatrical monologue where JCVD raises above the stage to talk to God, the viewer, or whomever it is you imagine he would hold himself accountable to. This speech is so undeniably heartbreaking that only a person of no soul, no feeling, and no humanity could sit through it and not feel anything. Up to that point in the movie JCVD has made you laugh, made you think, and even made you consider what it means to be a hero, but he hadn’t yet moved you to cry or contemplate the metaphysical existence of being a washed up celebrity. He really is an idol to some and a joke to others, but this speech reveals him to first, and always, be a man--flawed.

JCVD Boot to Face Contact: 10

There are no “fight scenes” in the action movie sense, but all the action is strategically placed to be believable and understated as it always is in real life. When he pulls off a move or simply succeeds in freeing a few hostages you want to cheer as if he’s brought down an entire drug cartel. The ludicrousness of what we consider “fighting” in modern cinema is illuminated by the subtle, real actions that he takes to save himself.

The Effect of Supporting Roles on JCVD’s Awesomeness: 10

There is not a character in this movie that you don’t feel something about. The side characters, normal people, JCVD comes in contact with completely encapsulate the world we all live in and the surreal lens through which that same world views JCVD. The cab driver speaks to him as if he owes her something; the video store clerks love him because he’s never hit Arabs in his movies. And everyone assumes he has held up the bank because their love and their judgment are both based on the fictional world they watch on DVD.

The villains are also exceedingly well-crafted. The ultimate bad guy, the man that appears to embody pure evil, nonetheless speaks the philosophical tenets that have been driving the movie and shaping the viewer’s interpretation all the way along. Arthur, the villain whose loyalty ultimately lies with JCVD, sparks sympathy in the viewer and sadness upon his death. A character that appears farcical at the beginning of the movie becomes three-dimensional as the story progresses through talking with JCVD and becomes the archetypal “hero ethics” character. He does what he imagines JCVD would do, not because he can think critically about the character he imagines JCVD to be, but because it symbolizes in his brain all that is best. As a viewer you become sympathetic to him because the child in us that yearns for absolutes recognizes the impulse that drives him to see JCVD as a hero and absolute warrior.

Finally there is his family. The speech delivered by his father and the pleas of his mother drive home what his position as an assumed bank robber costs him. It is easy to imagine him shouldering the load of responsibility in the movie, that is what action movie heroes do after all, but once his parents come on screen you see cracks form in his facade and the consequences of his actions become achingly apparent. Added to this is the character of his daughter always lurking in the background. She represents all that he wants but can’t have, and you are never quite sure what your position to her in the movie is, or what JCVD’s position to her is. He is her father, but even to his own daughter he is a source of embarrassment--a washed up movie star. The idea that his child could see him not as a parent, but as a celebrity, is one of the most subtly heartbreaking themes floating in the background of the story.

JCVD playing JCVD brings in all the connotations of action movie expectations which juxtapose with a very human drama. No one has allegiance to him except his parents and Arthur--not his daughter, not his fans, not his agent, not his wife, not his lawyer. He is left abandoned and mocked at the beginning of this movie and even the supposed bank robbery serves only as another avenue for schadenfrued.

We love this movie. It has spurned a passion to watch the work of an actor and remember what it was that made this man the “Muscles from Brussels” in the first place. What is the legend of JCVD and what might have been missed in its making?