This one kind of intrigued me and I was far from disappointed. You may have heard the story here: Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a version of himself in much the same way – in an at times similarly surreal story – as John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. Needless to say I haven’t really followed Van Damme’s real life for a while if ever so I was interested before writing this review in finding out how much, if anything, of the truth seeps in here; before realising that any “truth” I found could easily have been doctored to fit in with the film, lol, so I gave up. Which I guess is just one of the many things the movie could be about, that inevitable blur between fact and fiction that exists today, our sense of wanting and wanting to be celebrities and others in high places, and perhaps how they feel about the situation.
Unlike, apparently, many of those who praised the movie when it was released, I wasn’t overly wowed by the big surreal monologue moment here. Van Damme is fantastic for the duration, not just in this slightly too whiney segment, and I prefer the more subtle glances at the camera for breaking the fourth wall. It’s the kind of movie you can take mostly as tongue in cheek, a kind of clever curio, yet still get swept away by the drama. When the chaos is at a maximum inside the post office, I found myself genuinely fearful for the hostages etc. There’s a believability to the whole thing beneath the Brechtian pretense that kind of took me by surprise. It goes without saying that it’s Van Damme’s best film by leaps and bounds, but it works on its own merits as a heist movie too, and its originality is unquestionable.


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