“Dude...we saw Jean-Claude Van Damme last night...and he was WASTED!!!” So went the too-often heard refrain from my semester spent in Los Angeles in the Fall of 1999. The Muscles from Brussels’s career was in a precipitous free fall by the end of the 1990’s. Passed out in a booth at Mel’s Diner on Sunset at 2 AM was long ways down from the dizzying heights afforded him by the film Timecop just three years earlier (we’ll get to that one soon enough...don’t you even worry). I never saw the man myself (although I did see drunk Eddie Furlong get kicked out of a screening of Dogma...so that kind of counts, no?)...but word on the street was that he was in rough shape. Years later he would admit that around the era when I missed him crashing into the valet stand at the Cat and Fiddle by minutes he was doing up to 10 grams of cocaine....A DAY!! That’s a lot of booger sugar, y’all. Luckily dude managed to clean himself up and even went on to star in a self-reverential art house flick called “JCVD” where he poked fun at his own status as a washed up former action movie star. He even tried to parlay that same shtick into last year’s Amazon series “Jean-Claude Van Johnson” but it was cancelled after one season. So what if the guy is pushing 60 and can’t find steady work. At least he can drift off to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that he is not Steven Seagal. Of all of the skull crackers to come along in late 80‘s, Van Damme always seemed to pick the most interesting and diverse projects. I mean...most of his movies are not, you know, good (except Bloodsport...which I seem to recall as being a legitimately ace action flick...although I haven’t seen it since I was 12 so...)...and he certainly can’t act...but he always seemed to have a good sense of humor...whereas Seagal almost always tops the list of “Worst Saturday Night Live Hosts of All Time”. And that’s 45 years worth of hosts...including one-man laugh factory Donald J Trump. Anyway...I decided to go back and check out JCVD’s 1991 flick “Lionheart”...because I hadn’t seen it since 1991. What happens is this: We open under a bridge downtown Los Angeles, where some French dude has come to draw some blood...and to buy some cocaine from a gang of like of like 30 gangsters. Also, there’s an abandoned car nearby that is totally on fire. Seems like the worst possible environment to purchase drugs in! French dude gets his bag of blow and gives himself a face full. “Ahh...zis is SU-GARE!” he protests, not unreasonably. “Yup” the gang leader replies, “and this is gasoline!” The Frenchman is then doused with said gasoline and lit ablaze. I’ve heard plenty of stories about being burned by drug dealers over the years but not, like, literally! By the time he gets to the hospital the poor bastard is French TOAST! (I’m sorry...I had to). His wife and young daughter rush to his side but the doctors are all like “yeaaah...even if he lives he ain’t gonna be much to look at, notgonnalie”. Then they ask her if the family has health insurance and she says that they do not. The doctor says “bah hah hah shoulda voted for Bernie Sanders, huh?” The wife has no idea who that is because it is 1991. Meanwhile French Toast keep screaming “Leon!” over and over again. The doctors don’t know what he’s talking about. I do...but only because I watched the rest of the movie. Leon (it’s actually spelled ‘Lyon’...like the town in France...which is super bougie, I think) is his brother...who is totally Jean-Claude Van Damme. Dude is a beret-wearing member of the Foreign French Legion and he’s stationed in the desert way out in the middle of the Universal Studios backlot. When he gets word that his brother has been torched by drug dealers he wants to rush to his side...which is a totally normal reaction to have upon learning your brother has been torched by drug dealers. Unfortunately his superiors are a bunch of hard-ons. “Zis is ze French Legion...not Club Med...war could break out at any moment (note: huh?). Your bruzzah is not my problem!” Van Damme ain’t hearing it. He rips off his stripes and says he quits the war or whatever. They tell him that not only can he NOT leave...they will now put him in a sweat box for six months. He does not take this news well. He kicks the entire army’s asses, steals a jeep, and takes off into the dessert. “Don’t worry...the dessert will kill him” says the head army guy. They obviously don’t know that “Van Damme” translates to “I eat sand for breakfast”. JCVD somehow makes it to the ocean where he boards a freighter headed for the US of A. The non-specific boat people offer to give dude a lift if he works in the boiler room and endures a shit ton of verbal abuse. They also hook him up with a nice jersey and a pair of super complimentary, form-fitting dungarees. Guy is a SPECIMEN! And also--kinda weird lookin’. He has a one-foot torso and the rest is all legs. Good for the kicking of asses I guess. While he’s on the boat shoveling coal and showing off his finely etched biceps the head of the French Foreign Legion is STEAMING! Says he’s gonna make it his one personal goal in life to bring this Lyon cat to justice and dispatches some officially sanctioned henchman to capture him and bring him to justice. Seems like a pretty intense reaction for just one solo army deserter...but what do I know of Legionnaire politics? JCVD isn’t allowed allowed to come above deck...but when he does he sees that he’s on the wrong coast. “I said my bruzzah was in Los Angeles...and yet here is Liberty Statue??” They tell him this ain’t no pleasure cruise and that he better get back to shoveling or else p (“But it’s been no ned of roses...no pleasure cruise”--Freddie Mercury). He kicks a handful of asses and then jumps ship...backstroking across the Hudson and into lower Manhattan. There, he walks the streets with just the (wet) shirt on his back and nary a dollar in his pockets. I mean...he’s already on Wall Street. Why doesn’t he just follow the plot of every third eighties comedy and try to scam his way up the corporate ladder like Michael J Fox in Secret of My Success or something?? Oh...‘cuz of his burned up brother! That’s right! So he’s wandering around not doing much of anything when he comes across a street fight. You know know; the kind of thing you see in movies and nowhere else--bunch of dudes in a circle hootin’ and hollarin’ and betting huge wads of cash money. This cat Joshua immediately sees that JCVD is built like a brick shithouse and asks if he might like to beat a little ass. He demurs at first because...like he keeps repeating...he just wants to see his bruzzah. But he figures a quick fight beats (ha) delivering GrubHub orders on a 12-speed...so he whoops a guy’s ass and collects some cash and peaces out. Joshua is immediately on him like white on rice. Van Damme asks if he’ll help him get to LA (dude...just hop on a friggin’ Peter Pan already). Joshua says he wants to exploit his fighting skills just a wee bit longer. This character Joshua’s lines seems to be lifted wholesale from Dolomite (“Rat soup eatin’ jive turkey motherfucker!”) so I looked at the box to see who wrote the screenplay for this flick and....holy sweet goddamn...It was Jean-Claude Van Damme!!! He’s a regular friggin’ Billy Goldman, this guy! Joshua brings JCVD to some swanky high rise and asks to speak to a a lady who goes by The Lady (Actual name: the far less exotic-sounding Cynthia). This lady The Lady runs a special secret underground fighting ring for the high-falutin Park Ave one percenters. Like...people drive their limos and Porsche 911’s into an underground garage and sip champagne and fondle their jewelry while dudes beat each other half to death. I mean..I’m not saying shit like this does not happen...but I’m saying that shit like this probably does not happen. When they arrive there’s a fight already already in progress...during which the blood of one of the fighters is sprayed all over one of the lady spectator’s fur coat. The woman simply dips her finger in the blood and then puts it into her mouth. Dude...EWWWWW!!!! Van Damme agrees to fight the next dude...who comes out and says the following: “You’re kinda pretty. I don’t know if I want to fight you...or FUCK you!” I’m thinking if he decided to go ahead and fuck him we would’ve had a very different (possibly better?) movie on our hands. Alas, JCVD takes him down with one punch to the balls. Super duper lame...like that time in the late 80’s my Dad threw this huge party to watch a pay-per-view Tyson fight that lasted like 30 seconds. JCVD made himself $5k for his ball punch...and also earned himself a new nickname: Lionheart...which, not coincidentally, is also the name of the movie we are watching! Joshua sees a golden goose in Lionheart and tries to convince him not to go to LA. “You want go to LA, man?? Buncha weird ass motherfuckers runnin’ around out there!” It’s true...I’ve been! But you know...there’s the bruzzah. JCVD finally arrives at the hospital in LA and the doctors are all “bro...you are mad late: your brother has been dead longer than christ himself.” Ice cold. You’d think they could’ve sent him a text at least. He asks the doctors if the police caught the guys who torched his brother and they are all “humina humina I’m needed in the brain surgery theater stat!” JCVD rushes to see his brother’s widow and daughter but they pull up the welcome mat with the quickness. He offers to help with his dead brother’s million dollar hospital bills...‘cuz he has all that fighting coin...but she won’t even accept that. He’s like “umm...I had to jump through a hoop or two to get here...maybe cut me some slack.” But no...she has no interest in free money. Right. So JCVD is bummed...which is understandable. He’s got no family...he’s an army deserter...and he still had nothing but the SAME SHIRT on his back. Seriously, he couldn’t have bought himself a duffel bag or a I Love LA T-shirt? He and Joshua hit Musso and Frank’s and get themselves good and blackout drunk. When he comes to he’s in a baller ass suite at the Beverly Wilshire or some shit. Also: naked. The Lady is there doing aerobics or whatever. He asks what happened to his clothes. She tells him he needs new clothes. I fully concur on this point. He’s like fine but first I will walk around bareassed so people can check out his bare ass. According to wikipedia this scene made Van Damme very popular with “gay guys”. Right on...right on. The Lady takes him out in Beverly Hills for a super intense shopping montage. They really put on the friggin’ ritz. They end up at Spago sipping Dom and watching Wolfgang Puck making his famous chinois chicken salad table side (note: this last thing does not actually happen). The Lady says she wants Lionheart to be her personal #1 fighter. She would also like to ball him but he is not interested in the slightest. “I’m not your toy” he tells her. Why so glum, chum!? He agrees to do the fighting but he insists he must “live like a fighter”...which means moving out of his baller ass suite and moving into a janky ass duplex with Joshua in pre-gentrification Echo Park. He only wants to fight so he can support brother’s widow...who refuses to even speak to him. Seems like a lose/lose if you ask me. You don’t want to end up with Mickey Rourke face! But he goes on ahead and starts kickboxing the shit out of everyon...throwing dudes through the windshields of cars and whatnot. He fights a dude who looks like Gary Cherone from that band Extreme in a swimming pool. That’s pretty tight. Joshua starts funneling the money back to the widow under the guise of a phony insurance policy. Like...is this lady The Lady extremely wealthy just from staging illegal street fights?? How does she list this income on her tax returns?? Eventually the French Army dudes spot JCVD creeping around the widow’s apartment and try to take him in. He manages to escape....but with a broken rib! Sacre Bleu! I feel like this rib sitch is gonna come up again. JCVD fesses up to the widow and tells her she’s in danger and that she has to move into his duplex. She’s still not interested. I mean...dead coke dealer or wealthy army deserting undefeated street fighter?? Seems like an easy choice to me but also I am not a widow raising a child. Meanwhile...for no reason whatsoever...The Lady has decided to turn on Lionheart. Her golden goose!! She gets word that there’s this cat Atilla who doesn’t just beat on dudes...he KILLS THEM! It’s at this point I realize that no one has died in this movie (I mean...except for the brother of course). That’s kind of sweet, innit it? It’d probably have been a PG-13 if Joshua hadn’t gone around motherfuckering everything in sight. So The Lady gets some rich fat cat who looks like Terrence Stamp but who is not Terrence Stamp to set up a fight at his mansion where she will presumably/definitely bet all of her money on Atilla. Speaking of Atilla...this bad hombre rolls into town on his own private...JET! And he’s got his friggin’ kitten with him too! Man, this guy makes so much coin illegal street fighting that he can afford his own jet?? Maybe I need to change careers! I mean...I’ve never been in an actual fight...but Tony Rovezzi totally threw me down the stairs in the 7th grade...so that kind of counts. So the fight is set at a big tent at the rich dude’s mansion. It’s a real sweet spread; waiters passing around flutes of prosecco and scallops wrapped in bacon and whatnot. JCVD’s plan is to have Joshua bet all of their money on his own self...win the fight...and then get the eff outta dodge. Joshua is all “man this motherfucker has killed eight dudes! You can’t beat him! Even though you sure got a lot of heart, Lionheart!” The French Army guys show up to arrest the Lion and bring him back to French Belgium or wherever but The Lady hooks them up with front row tix to the fight...so they agree to chill and sample some tuna sashimi crostini. Ok so Van Damme and Atilla start fighting and...right off the bat...everyone can tell my main man has a broken rib. So naturally Atilla punches him in said broken rib about a grillion times. Guy is getting his ass tore UP. They’re all yelling “stay down, Lionheart!!!” He should totally listen because they said the same thing to Apollo Creed and look what the Russian did to him!! Joshua also tells him that it’s cool if he loses as he bet all of their money on the OTHER DUDE!! Lionheart takes a long pause...looks at Joshua...and says “wrong bet!” Such a cool ass thing to say. And also: the original title of the movie we are watching. The crowd slow claps Lionheart back to his feet (seriously) and then he is suddenly ready to do some VAN DAMAGE (you know I had to work that in at some point). Lionheart beats Atilla and everyone loses all of their money cuz they all bet on Atilla! Man, that SUCKS. Friggin’ Joshua. He rushes to say goodbye to the widow and her daughter...‘cuz he has one-way ticket to a lifetime of French Army-type torture waiting for him. He says his goodbye’s and the Legionnaires lead him away. They don’t get but three blocks away before they decide to just let JCVD skate! This motherfucker has charmed everyone...even the dudes sent to capture him! They let him go and he sprints back to widow...even though he now has like 35 broken ribs and a severe concussion and a burgeoning cocaine habit. He embraces the widow and they...like...kinda kiss?? Then he tells her that he’s flat broke and she’s like “see you never, you broke ass bum!” Just kidding. We don’t know what happens as the movie just ends. People must’ve dug Van Damme’s work here well enough because his next movie featured not one but TWO Jean-Claude Van Damme’s! The end. P.S.--While editing this review I realized that Lionheart initially said he was going to find the men who torched his brother and bring them to justice....but then just completely fucking forgot about it! Like...it is never mentioned again! That’s some bullshit right there....