JCVD

For the Friday Midnight Madness screening my friends and I got to see JCVD, I like to believe that it is a historical re-enactment of Jean-Claude Van Damme single handed rescued 8 hostages from terrorist. I swear it really happened, Michael Moore will make a documentary about this to show how the American Hollywood system failed Belgium.

Seriously now, this was a great way to start of this season of Midnight Maddness, its too bad that JCVD wasn't around for the festival, but he was in all our hearts. The Midnight Maddness programmer had a special thank you video from Van Damme. It was usual thank you for watching the movie.

Anyhoo, lets start talking about the movie.

JCVD
Directed by Mabrouk El Mechri

The overall premise is that Jean Claude Van Damme is a HUGE celebrity in his native Belgium. Even though his star power has fallen over the past decade, everyone still recognizes him. And most awesomely, everyone believes him to be like all his movie role action heros. JCVD is having difficulty in his child custody battle and is having trouble making his lawyer fees. The bank he walks into to transfer money happens to be getting robbed and becomes a hostage. But due to a series of unfortunate events, the police belive Van Damme to be the mastermind of the robbery. This leads the media to jump on the story and all of Belgium is on the edge of its seat to see what happens.

This film handles the reality duality of being an celebrity action star much better than last action hero. It isn't Van Damme but the supporting cast that really shines in this film. From the video store clerks, to the police, and ultimately my favorite bank robber ever Arter. They all firmly believe that JCVD is both a super hero but also a regular guy. They are elevated by the presence of JCVD.

Van Damme's best delivery is when everything is looking bleak for the hostages, the robbers are going crazy, so Van Damme decides its time for a personal monologue. He talks about his early life, being a scrawny kid with no biceps and that we used to build his confidence. Karate to him is "OOSS" but Hollywood is not "OOSS" and his drug troubles was due in part to his ex-wife.

This is a great movie that looks into celebrity status with some bits of action. Much more fun then Paparazii.