Jean-Claude Van Damme is once again coming back into my interest at the age of sixty. I enjoyed a lot of his films in the glorious eighties, but I was done with him in 1994, when I was in the cinema to see Timecop, made by the cinematic jack of all trades Peter Hyams.
Since then he has simply, until yesterday, passed me by. I noticed there's a new Van Dam movie on Netflix, for which I registered a couple of trailers.
The story is very simple, a famous mercenary returns to France (Paris) to rescue his son once again.
Now, it's a question of whether the famous Belgian is still a star or just not anymore.
His Last Mercenary is more of a dull standoff movie that you can't expect a big event from. It's very dull from the start, and Van Damme surprises you immediately with his trademark cleavage, and by the end of the film you're expecting more action.
In his glory days you enjoyed the action quite a bit, but this time you can see that when he tries, he's just getting old, and the action with him is very brief. In between the action sequences, you expect some kind of slick story, but unfortunately you sit through almost two hours of the film over utter rubbish that I'm sure the director made for the fun of filming with a more famous actor than himself. Unfortunately you can't even expect proper hyperbole from the film, although it tries to, but unfortunately you have to turn off most of your brain cells to enjoy the film when it makes no sense at all from start to finish.
Van Damme is the main star, with lines by actors unknown to me, model Assa Sylla, France's oldest actor Mia-Miou (The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob) and others. In addition to the French actors, the cast includes Russian actors, and according to the credits, Van Damme chose an all-Russian crew, led by Frenchman David Charhon, to make the film.
If you like Van Damme and are expecting a relaxing film that you simply watch in the evening from Netflix, the film will not disappoint. It's certainly better than recent Czech films, and it's certainly better than endless soap operas. It's just a movie for a night when they don't give you anything better. Van Damme is just a film you don't have to expect anything from, you have a few beers, wines...and you watch something they put online.
PS: Too bad Jiri Pomeje has already died, he would have elevated the whole film for Czechs by at least 20%. Tomáš Juřička is a handy replacement, I didn't recognize him at all. But it's not J.P, who is simply associated with Van Damme.
Photo © Netflix
Original release of this article July 31, 2021 – Kritiky.cz
