Toronto Film Fest: The Van-Dammed ‘JCVD’

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One of my editors has repeatedly brought up the movie ‘JCVD’ to me whenever we have had conversations about what’s playing Toronto. Honestly, I have never been sure if he was serious, being ironic or just pulling my leg.

The film, which premiered this year in Cannes and kicked off the Midnight Madness section here in Toronto, follows washed-up action star Jean-Claude Van Damme playing the role of washed-up action star Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Emotionally broken from dealing with bratty directors and a brutal divorce and child custody dispute, Van Damme is feeling disaffected, disgruntled and vulnerable, when he finds himself a hostage (and unwitting accessory) in a robbery.

I take the selections in Midnight Madness semi-seriously, as there are usually a few standouts from the standard gore and genre fare. On Friday afternoon I had ostensibly gone in to see something else and left (something I personally rarely do) after maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

Partly I wasn’t into the movies and partly I was obsessing over a couple phone calls I had to make to set up interviews for later in the week. Coming out of the theater I bumped into a couple of people who were chatting up the Van Damme flick. One of them even thrust a ticket to a public screening of ‘JCVD’ into my hand, starting pretty much immediately. I hopped in a cab and made it to the theater just in time.

I can’t say I would have been better off sticking with my original choice, but I personally just couldn’t stand ‘JCVD.’ The madcap meta-ness of Van Damme as Van Damme wore off pretty quickly -- it’s not as if the guy was ever a master of characterization in the first place -- but moreover it was such a visually unappealing picture. Shot in dirty, distressed metallic colors with blown-out highlights in nearly every shot, to be honest I found it physically difficult to look at.

It may make me derelict in my duties as a (sometime) critic to admit to this, but I bailed on ‘JCVD’ too. Sometimes you gotta vote with your feet.

-- Mark Olsen