When is a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie not a “Jean-Claude Van Damme movie?” When it’s the delightful French secret agent farce The Last Mercenary.
Van Damme has never been a stranger to comedy. No action star can be. You have to have some sense of comic timing to nail those bon mot’s as you roundhouse a villain to their death. He may have dived further into dark metafictional comedy with the self titled JCVD and action-hero-is-real-spy-antics of Jean-Claude Van Johnson, but The Last Mercenary sees Van Damme in what might be his finest intentional comedy performance.
Van Damme plays Richard Brumère, a legendary former French secret agent known as “The Mist” (“The Mist can be seen but is impossible to catch”). Having gone into exile after the infamous “Cup and Ball” affair in ’95, Brumère disappeared and became “the world’s most celebrated mercenary.”
Now, all these years later, a bureaucratic screw up results in the revocation of immunity from prosecution for one Archibald Al Mahmoud, a young man somehow connected to Brumère. Unfortunately, he seems to share his name with another young man, one obsessed with Al Pacino’s Tony Montana in Scarface, and who shares the character’s criminal ambitions.
How do these three men relate to each other and what have they got to do with the top secret weapons technology known only as “Le Big Mac”?
Un Bande A Part
The Last Mercenary differs a lot from the cookie cutter, elder action star movies Van Damme has been appearing in of late, with all the bounce and joie de vivre of ensemble French comedies such as Taxi, Amelie, or Delicatessen (je suis désolé for the dated French comedy references, it’s not always easy to get our hands on the latest ones). Rather than the dour tales of an aging spy/kickboxer/bouncer or kickboxer again, The Last Mercenary is absolutely dripping with character and fun.
If you watch The Last Mercenary expecting a “Van Damme movie,” another Bloodsport (which gets a shout out), or Universal Soldier, you might be disappointed. In The Last Mercenary Van Damme is but one part of a talented ensemble cast made up of impeccable character actors. Even the look of each actor speaks volumes about their characters, from the frazzled panic of Samir Decazza’s Archibald, suddenly finding himself as public enemy number one, to the simmering resentment for Brumère leaking out of every pore of Patrick Timsit’s Commandant Jouard, director David Charhon doesn’t pass up any opportunity to cast someone interesting or quirky in this film. He surrounds Van Damme with actors as varied as Valérie Kaprisky, Alban Ivanov, Miou-Miou, and Assa Sylla.
At times it feels like an adventure from a bande dessinée brought to life.
No Laughing Matter?
And it delivers. The laughs may not be delivered in as bawdy or as straightforward a manner as a U.S. take on similar material, but it is still very funny. The closest comparisons might be Get Smart or The Naked Gun with Leslie Nielson, but the French farce is more scattershot than those. It’s less of a spoof and is still a comedy you need to put some some work into, as the story isn’t spoon-fed to you. Patience is rewarded however, especially with the pay off to a particular pole dance gag.
Van Damme is perfect as super spy Brumère. After all those years of splits and high kicks, it turns out he could have been delivering the same thrills with just a nod and a crooked grin. There’s just something about his face in this, his hang dog look, with the occasional wry grin, that fits in beautifully with French comedy. He seems to be having a ball with his ridiculously competent character (“he took out a rhinoceros with his bare hands”) who still has difficulties relating to the “normal” people in his life. As Brumère is a master of disguise the film delights in putting him in elaborate disguises where it’s still extremely clear it’s Jean Claude Van Damme.
With solid support from the rest of the cast, Van Damme doesn’t need to carry the film entirely on his shoulders, but he more than easily carries the action sequences, which are at the same level as his past action work.
The film may be farcical at times, but there is nothing funny about the action on display here.
The Last Mercenary is a bit of a departure for JCVD, but it’s a route we hope he takes more often in the future.
Perfect light weekend viewing.
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