Sure, sure, it's faint praise to say that JCVD is the high point of Jean Claude Van Damme's career but how about this: Of the two or three hundred films I've seen so far this year - one day I'll start keeping an accurate tally - this is my favorite. It's smart, it's funny, it features a few stellar action sequences, it's impeccably made and allowed to speak his native language Van Damme turns in a dead solid performance. Seriously: this is not a camp film, it's not a guilty pleasure. However you want to judge it, this is one damn good film.

So, if you're a clever sort you may be thinking to yourself "Aha! A Van Damme movie titled with Van Damme's initials. I'll bet there's something to that." Well, go get yourself a cookie, you clever lad, you are absolutely correct. Think of JCVD as a Charlie Kaufman movie with added punching - a self reflective, quasi autobiographical dissection of celebrity in general and the star's own life, in very painful detail.

Van Damme plays Van Damme, warts and all. We start on the set of his latest direct to video effort - an intro that features one hell of an impressive single take, four minute action sequence - before veering into other aspects of his life. His real life money troubles are in there. His real life drug problems are in there. And, most surprisingly, the real life custody battle - which he loses, in no small part, based on his daughter's testimony that her friends laugh at her whenever her father appears on television - is in there, too.

Van Damme, clearly, is sick of his life. He hates the way his career has gone, he hates what he has been reduced to, and he's desperate for a change.

And this is where reality starts to blend with fiction. Post-custody fight the star returns home to Belgium to rest and recharge, only to receive a message from his lawyer that his check has bounced and he needs to pay up pronto if he wants to file an appeal. Problem is he's broke. So he begs an advance from his agent and heads to a local bank to pick up the wire transfer of funds. Small problem. The bank is being robbed and Van Damme becomes a hostage. A very high profile hostage. A high profile hostage who, when spotted by the police, is mistakenly assumed to be the robber himself, a situation the actual thieves recognize and take full advantage of.

I know I've already mentioned that this is one very smart film but it bears repeating. This is a VERY smart film, one of the sharpest dissections of celebrity culture ever made. And what makes it so strong is not just the obvious visual skills of its young director but mostly it's star / subject's willingness to strip himself bare and lay some very painful aspects of his own life out in public view. It's funny, yes, but it's also tragic and the whole thing is anchored by - believe it or not - a truly remarkable performance from Van Damme himself. He's not just credible, he's excellent, both in the dramatic moments and with the comedy. It's shocking, really, that after so many years of being a punch line for his stilted early performances that Van Damme has come out and proven his detractors so very, very wrong.

Whether it's that he's just been working in the wrong language, or with the wrong material or that he's simply gotten better at his craft with age and experience the simple fact is that Van Damme's performance takes what could easily have been nothing but a string of inside jokes and turned it into something truly powerful. Don't miss it.