This scares me: JCVD

So there's a new movie out called "JCVD," and I'll cut off the suspenseful guessing by telling you right off it stands for "Jean Claude Van Damme." It's one of those "clever" meta concepts. JCVD plays himself embroiled in a real-life bank robbery. What scares me about this is that it sounds kind of good.

Also alarming is the high praise Lisa Schwarzbaum gives it in "Entertainment Weekly." First comes this jarring comparison:

No wonder the star's face, in deadpan repose, resembles that of Buster Keaton.

That's AFTER comparing the movie favorably to the modern classic "Being John Malkovich." Then, en route to an A- grade, she adds:



Sympathetic director Mabrouk El Mechri creates a marvelous netherworld of ambiguous scenarios, and Van Damme rises to the challenge — of acting — like the real pro he is.

Well, she sure builds this one up in only a few paragraphs. It's not just this one critic, though, as the bottom line at Rotten Tomatoes (where the fi;m currently boasts an 83% freshness score) indicates:

Consensus: JCVD is a touching, fascinating piece, with Jean-Claude Van Damme confounding all with his heartfelt performance.


Hey, other than the great fight scenes in "Bloodsport," there's not a whole lot in the Van Damme ouvre that appeals to me. I don't need to see a straight-to-video actioner in which he craks a walnut with his ass cheeks or whatever he does. But I kind of want to check this out, even if that desire fills me with shame. At least I know that since I'm lame now and rarely go to the movies, I don't need to ask you to try to talk me out of it. But when "JCVD" hits DVD--or maybe "reverse thrust kicks DVD" would be a more apt expression--I'm there!