Popular reviews

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  Review by DirkH ★★★★ 7

  Perhaps one of the best meta aware films ever made.

  This should be watched for that fantastic opening scene and that amazing van Damme monologue. It's his finest roundhouse kick yet.

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  Review by Florin Scanlon ★★★★ 9

  "I saw people worse off than me. I went from poor to rich and thought, why aren't all like me? Why all the privileges? I'm just a regular guy. It makes me sick to see people who don't have what I've got. Knowing that they have qualities too. Much more than I do! It's not my fault if I was cut out to be a star. I asked for it. I asked for it, really believed in it. When you're 13, you believe in your dream. Well, it came true for me. But I still ask myself today what I've done on this earth. Nothing! I've done nothing!" - Jean-Claude Van Damme

  The man behind the legend. Behind the star,…

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 1

  Van Damme leaves Hollywood and goes back to his home country of Belgium to make a half-metafictional biography half-DTV crime thriller in his native language where all of his middle-aged stresses, regrets and circumstances surrounding his image, his path to fame, his finances, his divorces, his drug addictions, etc accumulate in non-linear fashion and are eventually given a concentrated cathartic outlet via a ridiculous hostage situation he accidentally finds himself involved in. It opens on a one-shot tracking action sequence where you get to see a weary, 47yo Van Damme do some of his insanely athletic feats over 'Hard Times' by Baby Huey* which is revealed to be a gag where he’s just shooting a new crummy movie with an…

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★

  all the very annoying & overcooked stylistic choices in this can't detract from the fact that, out of all the big 80s/90s action stars, van damme was overall the greatest screen performer of them, matching a taught, deliberately homoerotic physicality with a slightly-oblique everyman persona, always signifying to the audience an attitude of "wow, can you really believe a guy like me became a movie star?". this is his most affecting acting showcase, probably due to the fact that he's able to actually give a performance in his native language. the director/writers clearly oriented this to be a gracious dog day afternoon-esque vanity project for van damme, but he imparts it with a deliberate listlessness and skilled melancholy that ultimately leaves you nostalgic for a bygone era in which weird european martial artists like him could be beloved by people all over the world just for being an underdog who could do the splits and kick people really good.

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  Review by Kenneth Clark ★★★½

  This movie would have been hilariously bad if they chose to use this concept with Steven Segal

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  Review by alphonse0 ★★★½

  Yes, the 6 minutes where Jean Claude floats in the air and delivers a crying fourth wall breaking monologue about his career failures lives up to the hype.

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  Review by {Todd} ★★★★½

  ***See where this movie falls in my JCVD Rankings List***
  boxd.it/1ufiY

  This is a sensational movie that transcends the action crime genre. I was not prepared for this emotional punch in the chest. I've never seen a film quite like this before. It is also hands down the best acting performance by JCVD in his entire career.

  JCVD plays himself, struggling with the life of an action star on the downside of his career. Down on his luck, JCVD finds himself in the middle of a robbery/hostage situation in his home country of Belgium and the eyes of the world turn to what this famous action star will do. There are so many parts in this film that are fantastic…

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  Review by AndrewC ★★★½ 2

  I think it's safe to say that across the entire filmographies of almost any action star from the 80s and 90s, none have had a film that is quite like what Jean-Claude Van Damme made with JCVD. Even putting aside its unique metafictional premise, the bravery with which Van Damme had to have had to agree to be in something like this is really astounding since in it, he is essentially eviscerating his entire career and baring everything for the audience to see. The conversations he had here discussing his failings, his persona, and his personal life are unlike any movie I've ever seen since he is basically addressing the audience directly and in doing so, he really does deliver…

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  Review by Boy Roarbison [fka Nag Champion] ★★★ 4

  JCVD is not without its flaws. The score is irritating, overbearing and distracting. It is oddly paced and edited, with some head-scratching choices in both the direction and photography. But JCVD isn't about the directing or the score. It's about Jean-Claude Van Damme. And I can say, without any semblance of sarcasm, that he shows some serious skill in this film. Not just at kicking cigarettes out of people's mouths, but at actual acting. Who knew? He plays "himself", or rather a variation thereof. It's raw and deeply sympathetic, far from the bravado-soaked uber confidence of his usual characters. He's a broken man, stressed to the tilt and hanging on for dear life midst a cavalcade of custody hearings and…

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  Review by Matt ★★★★

  VAN DAMME-A-THON 2020!!! 

  I had to take a break from all the October horror movies to watch a Van Damme flick, because I saw that the Muscles from Brussels turned 60 today! 

  When I started this goofy idea of watching a bunch of Van Damme flicks earlier this year, I didn’t even realize that Van Damme was celebrating such a big birthday this year. It just kind of worked out that way. The whole idea was that I watched some middling DTV movie he was in, but he was still really good and made the whole thing watchable, and I thought, “Well, I’ll watch pretty much anything he’s in.” and that’s how I ended up with a year of watching a bunch…

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  Review by Luke ★★

  The message of the film is very important,I just found some of the acting poor

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  Review by Raphael Georg Klopper ★★★½

  Decadence coped through filmic expurgation

  Cinema, the only place where a guy like Jean-Claude Van Damme could express and get himself across, that the roundhouse kicks king and cocaine addict image of him would always impede him. While venturing in the unexplored ground of comedy through a weird and quirky meta-commentary on himself, he ends up making in JCVD one of the single most unique and weirdly heartfelt autobiographies that also happens to be an assault / hostage takeover flick.

  Taking some of the cult around it I was sure hopping a bit more bite in its takes and overview of its star’s long career, but is rather much more timid – and hence even more intimate because of it.…