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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2008
Country of origin:	Belgium / Luxembourg / France
Director:	Mabrouk El Mechri
Genre:	Fantastic genre-bender
Starring:	Jean-Claude Van Damme, Hervé Sogne
Rating:	5/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130988/
Tagline:	Be Aware
Favourite line:	"Central to Unit 27. Jean-Claude Van Damme's robbing a post office. I need back-up."

Some would find it hard to play themselves.
Not Jean Claude.

The plot:
Jean Claude Van Damme is Jean Claude Van Damme, or at least an aspect of the real man.
Down on his luck, Jean Claude has been in court fighting a custody battle with his wife. He’s low on cash, and the offers of work have dried up.
Visiting a bank in his home town of Schaarbeek, near Brussels, he is attempting to convince the clerk to give him access to some cash, using the old ‘do you know who I am line?’ when she fails to respond positively, when robbers burst in to raid the place. Using a pistol as a cudgel, they floor Van Damme and the security guard, and soon have control of the building.
Awakening, Van Damme is forced to take a phone call from the police, from their chief negotiator, and soon, it is clear, the police believe that Van Damme is the man responsible for the robbery.
How can the real Van Damme achieve what the fictional characters he plays would in a heartbeat: saving the hostages, and getting himself out alive in the process.

It’s fascinating stuff, this.
A meta-movie, what we have here is an inversion of all that you would expect, with Van Damme the cipher through which social commentary is piped, with inner city Belgium portrayed as a violent, seedy, altogether unpleasant place, in stark contrast to the usual view of a country where nothing really happens.
Van Damme, the real man, is held up in high regard by the Belgian population, so his betrayal, his turn to violence, seems all the more shocking to them: “You are the face of Belgium,” he is told at one point, and there is considerable truth in that.
Racism is also dealt with, though fleetingly, as a bartender of Middle Eastern extraction discusses terrorism and asks a customer “If I grew a beard, would that make me a terrorist, too?” I’m paraphrasing that last one, but it’s near enough.
In one astonishing scene, the fourth wall is not so much broken, but kicked over entirely, as the cameras lift away from the scene being presented, into the lighting rig above, where we find JCVD gazing pointedly into the camera, delivering a five minute monologue about his real life that is damn near heart-breaking.
Most astonishingly of all, I suppose, is Van Damme’s performance. Emotional and powerfully convincing, seems this was one project personal enough to get him to actually put some effort in.
Intelligent, thought provoking, and about as original a film as you are ever likely to see.
Excellent, excellent, excellent.