9 Damme Good Jean-Claude Movies

A few weeks ago I rented JCVD from Netflix and couldn’t wait to slide open the DVD player.  Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of my favorite action movie stars growing up.  I went to all the movies, learned the one-liners, and often times dragged my friends to see his movies when no one else wanted to go.  When I learned that Van Damme made a movie that was a personal stab at his failed personal and professional life, I immediately knew it was going to be special.  A past-his prime, beefed up muscle star that was brave enough to face his personal and financial demons on screen, told by way of pseudo-reality, entwined with a European Tarantino-esque arc.  How could it not be?  The pivotal scene that slams Van Damme smack against the camera in a three minute monologue edges under the core of Van Damme, revealing, if to us, but himself, how fragile life can be.  It was a rare scene where I wished that the Academy Awards had recognition for “Best Scene in a Motion Picture.”  Hopefully more people will rent this movie.  But my list below is made up of movies most people have seen and maybe forgotten.  Almost all of them are from the early 90’s when, Van Damme was at his ass-kicking best.  And undoubtedly, you may have your own objections and favorites, so please share in the comments below. 

9.  Breakin’.  Ok, so if you know anything about movies you probably know that Breakin’ is not a “chop-socky” karate film.  It is about a bunch of street break dancers and Jean-Claude Van Damme isn’t even credited.  So why is it on my list?  The first reason is because it’s my list.  The better reason is my pal Omar showed me this scene in college and I couldn’t believe it.  One of the first street dance scenes shows a crowd gathered around the central break dancers.  Plain as day you can see Van Damme bobbing and dancing to the music.  I think he is wearing all spandex.  The film, like almost all on the list, is sentimental to me because it evokes good times in college. 

8.  Death Warrant.  This is another sentimental favorite because it came out when I was too young to go see it on my own and my late grandfather took me.  I remember him saying to me when we came out that if it weren’t for the time spent with me he would have claimed it was a waste of money.  Death Warrant came along at a time when a lot of movies had cops infiltrating prisons to try and find the source of crime and corruption in the story line.  Van Damme played the part well, ultimately discovering the corruption and stopping the serial murdered Sandman in his tracks. 

7.  The Quest.  Many will say this movie is awful.  Written and directed by Van Damme, from a story he came up with Frank Dux (the real-life fighter from Blood Sport), The Quest is period piece set in the 30’s that looks a lot like the video game Mortal Kombat sprinkled with elements of Blood Sport.   I think people took the movie too seriously, maybe even Van Damme did, too, but if you take a step back it is fun and filled with great action.  Even an aged Roger Moore is fun to watch though you may ask what he’s doing in this movie.  

6.  Kickboxer.  Van Damme gravitates to a central theme in many of his movies.  Most of the movies are either revenge or proving someone wrong.  This one has a bit of both as Van Damme travels to Thailand after his brother is paralyzed by a Thai fighter in an exhibition kickboxing match.  Van Damme goes native as he searches out a renowned kickboxing master and spends his days and nights getting into shape for the ultimate battle, one in which he seeks to honor his broken brother.  A few parallels to Rocky IV, minus the patriotism, also exist here.

5.  Double Impact.  I like this movie for myriad of reasons.  In the summer I would go to movies all the time.  The summer before I entered high school I would escape the hot, Florida sun as often as I could and in one particular week my friend, Mike Goldberg, and I saw Doc Hollywood, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, and Double Impact on three consecutive days.  I remember it as if it were yesterday.  The second reason I like this movie is because it had big, fake tits in it.  As a 14 year-old boy, who snuck into the movie for the action but got the added bonus of bodacious boobies, I definitely would remember this film.  But the last reason it remains a favorite, is once again tied to my pal Omar, who would hear me recite all my Arnold and Van Damme lines in college and ask me to do the line from this movie, “I would never in my life wear black, silk underwear.”  You have to imagine the thick accent that Van Damme would try and disguise as he played the rougher of two karate fighting twins separated at birth, only to be re-united and mistaken for one another.  Is it a great movie?  No, but one of my favorites. 

4.  Sudden Death/Lionheart.  The number four spot was a tough one for me.  I love the idiotic simplicity of Lionheart, about a guy forced to fight in underground street fights, bet on by well-to-do criminal types.   The final fight scene in the pool is awesome, if not predictable.  But I also like Sudden Death for what it is, Die Hard on Ice.  In Sudden Death, Van Damme plays a divorced fireman who takes his son to a Penguins hockey game and somehow stumbles upon a plot to kill the Vice President.  If you have seen this movie you know there is nothing more improbable than when Van Damme finds his way onto the ice as the Penguins goalie, only to stop a breakaway goal.  And there is nothing better than when Van Damme fights the Penguin’s mascot.  I eat this stuff up.  

3.  Universal Soldier.  I love, love, love this movie.  This movie is so ridiculous, yet fun, that I saw it twice in the theater and used to watch it all the time in college.  Van Damme, attempting to end a massacre and rape in Vietnam, is killed by a fellow soldier.  After the two men kill each other the government sweeps in to put these two guys on ice, literally.  Now in “present day” (1992), Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren head up a covert group of US. fighting zombies, who will do whatever the government wants until they need to cool off and recharge.  Of course, by the time we come upon the unit the wiring is getting crossed and a few of these Universal Soldiers start to go haywire.  Van Damme and Lundgren spend the second half of the movie playing cat and mouse until Van Damme kicks Lundgren into a wood chipper.  This elicits the question, “Where is he,” from the love interest.  Van Damme’s answer?  The only thing possible:  “Around.”  Classic. 

2.  Timecop.  By far Van Damme’s biggest commercial success, Timecop is set in the future where time travel is not only possible, but so much so that a special unit of Timecops must chase criminals through the space time continuum.  The movie pits Van Damme against a corrupt Senator (the recently late Ron Silver) and stars Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’s Mia Sara as Van Damme’s murdered wife.  A lot of twists and turns, places where you have to pay attention and a great scene where a future and present Silver become joined until they both are erased form history.  Confused?  Good.  All you need to know is Van Damme kicks ass and you get to see Mia Sara’s boobies. 

1.  Bloodsport.  Come for the Kumite, stay for a young Forest Whitaker.  In the role that made Van Damme famous, Bloodsport is about Frank Dux who sets out to win a secret tournament of the world’s deadliest fighters.  Dux was a real life Ninjutsu master who travelled to Hong Kong to fight in this tournament, despite being AWOL from the military.  Van Damme plays Dux as a wide-eyed innocent, eager, but oblivious to the dangers around him.  But on the mat he is a tiger, dispatching his opponents in record time on his way to his final showdown with the vicious Chong Li.  Much of what Dux has claimed has been challenged through the years, but what is undisputed is the caliber of film that is Bloodsport.  Van Damme shows off great charisma and martial arts ability that is breathtaking.  And Donald Gibb (Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds) is a perfect Hell’s Angels kind of side kick to the young Dux.  But again, it is my love of the Van Damme dialogue that makes this movie number one.  I know every line and can recite all the Van Dammeism’s with almost perfect cadence and accent.  This, my friends tell me, never gets old.  And neither does this movie.