The Bouncer is a Belgian film starring Van Damme as a man in his 50s who works as a bouncer and cares for his 8-year-old daughter that goes to an expensive private school. When he loses his job after a guy he's bouncing hits his head, his buddy gets him a new job at a strip club. When the guy that was bounced whose head was hit presses charges and it comes back to Van Damme, he's given a chance to have it all wiped away. An interpol agent or something or other wants him to go undercover at his new strip club joint to find out what his boss, a dude who's into some shady stuff, has planned. When that crime boss finds out about his daughter though, all bets are off.
This wasn't too bad. It's mostly in French with English subtitles, so if you don't like that, that's something to consider. From Van Damme's standpoint, this is more of that step above movie that he's been trying to make more of as he's gotten older, and I think this really works for him in that respect. It has action moments, and when they happen they're really well shot; but beyond that, Van Damme is someone in this character who we can invest in and want to see do well. I don't think this is a movie he would have wanted to make in 1995--and if it was presented to him, he'd probably have wanted to change it a lot--but in 2018, this Van Damme who's verging on 60 can do it, and he does it well.
Before I compare Van Damme to Seagal, I want to give Van Damme his own paragraph to celebrate his entry into the 30 Club. First off, you may be wondering why we're calling this his 30th review when he already has 30 tags. He, like Dolph, was tagged for the 400th post, which was the Van Damme film fest, so that doesn't count as a film for either of them. Anyway, when I started the site in 2007, he was put in the Hall of Fame because he had a lot of DTV flicks at that time, and while they were of varying degrees of quality, it seemed like, like Seagal, he was going exclusively DTV and putting out a lot of stuff. In 2008 that changed with JCVD. It was a transcendent performance that changed what we thought Van Damme was and who he could be on-screen. Follow that up with Expendables 2, which he essentially wins from Stallone; and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, which was another great performance, and now Van Damme isn't just another DTV guy pumping out three flicks a year and cashing the checks. That's both good and bad, because I think that leads to something like Pound of Flesh being too big and too long as he tries to do more with it; but it also allows us to have something like The Bouncer with the depth to it that you won't find in your usual DTV flick. Now with him joining the 30 Club, the question is, does the 40 Club beckon? Because he's being choosier in his role, as best as I can tell, there are only 7 more DTV films of his I need to do, give or take, so chances are he'll cap out at the 30 Club, but we'll see.
Now to Seagal and Van Damme. This film here, which is better than probably every Seagal flick in the 2010s outside of Attrition, could not have been made by Seagal because of the way Seagal insists on his movies being made. His character can't be vulnerable; he can't be in a position of weakness, even for a short spell; he can't be shot, he can't be hit by a punch. These are all things Van Damme's character endured, and came out stronger as a result of. It's as if Seagal, who's almost ten years older than Van Damme, has not matured at all in his work as an actor and the kinds of roles he takes on--and one could say he hasn't matured as a person either based on the way he needs to be depicted in his films. I'm not saying Van Damme is perfect--say what you want about Seagal's films, but they all hover around the 90-minute mark, whereas a lot of Van Damme's go over 100 minutes, which is too much for me--but he's willing to let his characters seem weak, even if it's for a short period and he ultimately wins out in the end. He doesn't need to be perfect or omnipotent like Seagal does, and his work is better for it.
This film was directed by Julien Leclercq with Robrecht Heyvaert as the cinematographer. Leclercq has done some other action-oriented films out of his native Beligium, and Heyvaert was also director of photography for the new Bad Boys movie, and the pedigree of both really shows in the way a lot of these action sequences were shot, especially a chase scene that takes place in a parking garage. Right now America is known for the big blockbusters, but beyond that, most of the great action is coming from other places. We think of the UK, especially with the Scott Adkins/Jesse V. Johnson films, and now Ross Boyask and Stu Bennett having two successes back to back; but a film like this shows me I need to go beyond the English-speaking film world and explore what other places are doing. It's one thing that's good about having someone like Van Damme on the tin who has a worldwide audience, it gets people like me in the door and opens my eyes to other work.
Finally, getting back to this idea about foreign films with subtitles, I know it's a sticking point for a lot of people. Beyond that, we just don't do a lot of action outside of the English-speaking world here in the States, so when people think subtitles, the first thing that comes to mind is indie-art house kinds of movies. I'd be curious to know how a movie like this does on Tubi in terms of customer retention: do people start it, realize it's mostly in French with subtitles, and turn it of; or do they do like I did and go with it? That might determine if a company like Tubi takes on more films like this, because as far as I know, Tubi isn't available in Europe.
And with that, it's time to wrap this up. This is a different kind of Van Damme film, more indicative of this more mature turn he's taken in a lot more of his recent movies. If you're not a fan of subtitles, be warned; but I think even if you aren't, you should give this one a try.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7816392
Hey Matt, it's Richard from The DTV Digest here. Glad you enjoyed this one. It's a lot better than KILL 'EM ALL, which is a total mess. So things worked out well here. We only got the dubbed version in the UK, but Van Damme dubbed himself, so that's in its favour. But I'd always go for subtitles if I could. It was nice to see Van Damme breaking out of DTV with this (although it was still ultimately a DTV release in most countries) and I hope we see more films like this where he can speak his native language.
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