After almost a decade of straight-to-DVD bombs, Van Damme blindsided audiences at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival in a role that trades flying roundhouses for a glimpse into the real — or at least “real” — life of a down-and-out movie star.

Van Damme plays a version of himself, a 47-year-old action hero working on a bad movie for an obnoxious young director. After running into a Belgian post office to pick up a wire transfer, we hear a shot from inside. The police are called in, and we hear Jean-Claude on the phone, making demands and refusing to free his hostages.

Between scenes of police procedure and crowds waving signs like FREE JEAN-CLAUDE, flashbacks give the full picture of Van Damme’s slide. He just lost a custody fight for his daughter, who’s ashamed of his movies. He’s broke; the check to his custody lawyer bounced, which is why he was rushing to the post office in the first place. And he’s begging for a chance at a studio film. He knows he’s in terrible movies, and he hates it.

When the flashbacks catch up to the present we see the events from inside. After unknowingly walking into a hold-up, Jean-Claude’s been taken hostage too and forced to talk to the negotiators on the phone with a gun at his head.

He tries to help the hostages, but it’s light years from Van Damme’s usual cartoon heroism, more Killing Zoe than Timecop, and the violence is never trivial. When one of the thieves, a rabid fan, makes Van Damme reenact his famous move by kicking a cigarette out of another hostage’s mouth, he does it with an embarrassed shrug. Then the robber tries too and lays the guy out, and Van Damme just buries his face in his hands. It’s not played for a cheap laugh.

But there are moments of comedy, particularly to do with Van Damme’s persona and fame. He and the robber talk about Steven Seagal, who that day beat Van Damme out for another straight-to-DVD part. (“You’re ten times better!” “Well, he cut off his ponytail.”) There are loads of knowing movie references, with even the cops aware of the role they’re suddenly playing in the spectacle of a celebrity crackup.

Fame is the major theme of Van Damme’s life, and he’s trapped by the persona that he created and by the celebrity he always wanted. It’s hardly the first time the topic’s been tackled, but maybe never from someone for whom it cuts so close to home. In an outright shattering of the fourth wall, late in the film a crane carries Van Damme above the set, and we see the lights and rigging behind him.

In a six-minute soliloquy he talks emotionally about drug troubles and his fear of having accomplished nothing, and that this movie, JVCD, is his big chance to do something real. Then, before the crane lowers him back into the shot he prays not to die in the robbery, because he’s finally getting his wish. It’s a nervy tweak of the line between movie and reality, but somehow it works. Within and without the film, he wants that chance, and knows this is it. (The director can’t resist one terrible reality-breaking element, the melodramatic score, which should have been cut entirely.)

In the end Van Damme gets his wish. He really can act, and the movie forces the audience to take another look at someone we thought we knew all along. The DVD extras are meager, just the theatrical trailer, two deleted scenes (one an alternate take), and a digital copy of the movie. But see JCVD for an entirely unexpected side to an actor you probably wrote off years ago, just lke Hollywood did.

JCVD is available on DVD and Blu-ray on April 28.

Tags: dvd reviews, jcvd, jean-claude van damme