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Happy Belated Birthday, Jean-Claude Van Damme!In his 47th year, the actor prepares to unleash his greatest performance yet.

By Grady Hendrix
Posted Friday, Oct. 19, 2007, at 12:19 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

And it's not just an act he puts on for his movies. Faced with international fame and earnings in the millions before he was 30 years old, Van Damme acted exactly the way any average person would act when confronted with sudden wealth and fame: like a jackass. He snorted a mountain of coke, he got married five times, he was caught on tape drunk and stripping on a public street. He's disarmingly frank about all this, going on talk shows and saying that he can't remember being in Hong Kong to shoot Knock Off with Rob Schneider because he was coked to the gills. He makes it seem normal. Even now that he's given up the cocaine, he still insists on behaving the way, say, your dad would behave if he went on television on a regular basis and got interviewed continuously. He's a celebrity who's never hired a publicist or an image handler because he figures, stubbornly, that he can do it himself. The result is that he gives interviews where he drops bon mots like, "A cookie has no spirit because it is just a cookie. But before that it was milk and eggs. And in the eggs there is a potential life." And when he hugs pretty television hostesses, he sometimes pops an embarrassing on-camera erection. He loves animals, hates bullfighting, and all of this is completely and extremely normal. Wanting to be governor of California? That's weird.

The only thing Van Damme does in his movies that isn't normal is take his clothes off. A lot. Most people don't like to see themselves naked, but Jean-Claude has made gratuitous nudity an important part of his career. Whether he's playing a serial killer, a time-traveling cop, an off-duty firefighter, a day laborer, or a member of the French Foreign Legion, he always manages to wind up in situations that require him to bare his muscular bottom. It's an impressive posterior, as firm, white, and round as two uncooked turkeys. But, like the Tree of Wisdom in the Garden of Eden, or a pole dancer at Scores, you can look but you can't touch. If you taste the fruits of Van Damme, it's only a matter of minutes before a bad guy kills you. Jean-Claude's wives and girlfriends come with expiration dates stamped on their foreheads, and the clock starts ticking the minute he says, "I love you."

It's been almost 10 years since one of Jean-Claude's movies opened theatrically in America; the 13 he's released since 1998 have gone straight to video. But just when it looks like he's all washed up, he's embracing the greatest role of his career: himself. The movie is called J.C.V.D. in J.C.V.D., and six minutes of footage has been released on the Internet. In it, a casting session for a Jean-Claude Van Damme biopic is in progress when it's interrupted by the man himself. "So you're making a movie about me and you don't bother to let me know?" he sulks. In a squeamish manner that has the whiff of Ricky Gervais, he breaks up the casting session ("So what's it going to talk about, your Van Damme movie of which Van Damme is not aware? Painful divorces? Drug problems?"), and by the end, he's insisting that he'll play the role himself, telling the casting director to call his bosses. "Just tell 'em you got Van Damme," he smiles. "I'm sure they'll be thrilled," the casting director deadpans.

The strangest thing about this footage is that it's funny. Not funny in the way that Van Damme having a monologue with a moth in a Russian prison who turns into the ghost of his dead wife during In Hell is funny, but funny on purpose. Sure, Robert De Niro worked as a cab driver for three months to appear in Taxi Driver, but Jean-Claude Van Damme spent 19 years becoming a washed-up action-movie star in order to convincingly portray a washed-up action-movie star. I have to accept the fact that, years after his weird dance in Kickboxer, he's surprised me for a second time. He's getting to be more and more like my wife every day.

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Grady Hendrix, a New York writer, runs the New York Asian Film Festival.
Photograph of Jean-Claude Van Damme by Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

It was the first time I'd ever seen a guy do the splits like that--with his legs on chairs, he does the splits PAST 90 degrees. As a teen I tried working on my stretching to see if I could ever do that. Not even close. I never even got close to doing normal splits.

It's best to simply not think about the plot too hard. But, next time you watch it, pause for a moment and try to figure out what would possess some of these guys to enter a fight to the death. My favorite is the little guy who twirls around, scrapes the ground and works all the weird angles but gets his back broken by the main baddie who outweighs him by probably 150 pounds.

Maybe it's just me, but if you weigh 110 sopping wet, it's probably not advisable to enter a death match conducted in a confined area where the bigger guys are sure to eventually get hold of you.

--Sundown

(To reply, click here.)

Universal Soldier stands bumpy head and sculpted shoulders above the rest of the Van Damme oeuvre, as it made the best possible use of his limited acting skills: he starts as a reanimated corpse, and eventually develops into a confused young Cajun - which neatly explains the intractable French accent too.

Hard Target's a close second: Van Damme's total lack of affect perfectly fits his role as a homeless, emotionally remote Vietnam vet, and John Woo's creative ultraviolence makes acting ability totally irrelevant.

And then there's Timecop: the technical details don't make a lick of sense, but with two Van Dammes - who for once are not identical twins separated at birth - who cares?

Cyborg, on the other hand, deserves a special award for sheer awfulness. Aside from one don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it scene, there's no way to tell that the cyborg isn't human - especially since the cyborg shows more emotional depth than Van Damme.

--MsChris

(To reply, click here.)

(10/21)

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