Martial-arts legend Jean-Claude van Damme, “the Muscles from Brussels,” casts himself in a new light: the comic-pathetic. Playing “himself,” in all candor a has-been Hollywood star, he first loses a custody fight in family court, then loses a role to Steven Seagal when the latter consents to cut off his ponytail, then haplessly gets caught in the middle of a Post Office robbery for which the Belgian police tab him as the mastermind. The single-take track of one-man-army action at the outset is too artsy for the purposes of parody (“It’s very difficult for me to do everything in one shot. I’m forty-seven years old”), and the photography throughout is a murky monochrome, and the Dog Day Afternoon hostage situation is static and tedious. Laughs are few and small: e.g., the casual reprise, on demand, of the star’s kick-the-cigarette trick. And while his decaying face speaks for itself, and quite eloquently, his straight-to-the-camera big dramatic monologue — trembles and tears — hardly opens up a promising new path. Directed by Mabrouk El Mechri. (2008) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.