Out of the 80's action stars, Jean-Claude Van Damme seems to be aging better than many of his contemporaries like Steven Seagal, mostly because he seems willing to accept that he can't pull off the same moves as he did in his youth, and instead has concentrated on actually becoming an actor, as evidenced by his turn in the under-rated Ringo Lam collaboration In Hell.

That being said, the quirky new drama JCVD will probably disappoint fans of Van Damme's classic oeuvre like Bloodsport hoping for lots of split kicks to the head. But, if you're in the mood for a different take on the bank heist picture, this will definitely fit the bill.

Taking a semi-autobiographical approach to the first part of the story, JCVD starts out with Van Damme (in the movie's only real action scene) working on a cheap movie in order to pay the legal bills for his divorce. After losing custody of his daughter, Jean-Claude heads back to his native Brussels.

Tired, hungry, and broke, he heads into a local bank, only to find himself involved in a robbery. The thieves see Van Damme as a way to escape the police, and so they convince him (under threat to the bank's employees) to turn in the role of his life, and tell the police that he is the one behind the heist.

JCVD is the sort of "meta" movie that regularly breaks the "fourth wall" between the film-makers and the viewer, witnessed most pointedly in a monologue that Van Damme delivers directly to the audience. It's with no hyperbole that I say that this scene is Van Damme's best acting work ever, and he is, shockingly and surprisingly, really solid as a whole during the picture.

That might not be saying much for an actor whose thick accent made him laughably near-indecipherable at most points during his career, but honestly -- yes, I'm serious -- Jean-Claude shows he has some actual acting chops here. At the very least, Van Damme's performance is far beyond what Chuck Norris did on Walker Texas Ranger or Seagal continues to do in straight-to-video dreck like The Foreigner 2, and shows that there might still be some good movies yet to come from the "Muscles from Brussels".

RATING: 7