While I consider myself a fan of the action movie genre, I admittedly have not watched many of Van Damme or Seagal's movies, well, not the good ones anyways (I was always more of an Arnold guy). My exposure to Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme stems from late nights of procrastinating at UC Davis lamenting why I was there while watching one of their direct to DVD features on USA, hiding the fact I was watching this shit from my sleeping roommate (How I wasn't watching porno instead is anyone's guess, cause you know, it's a normal guy thing to do. Me, I was watching some big chubby dude with a ponytail chopping bad guys down while wearing a Kimono).
This isn't to say I don't appreciate what these guys have done in their careers. They, along with Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone singlehandedly became the faces of hardcore badass action. The 80's were the era of hyper-masculinity, The men's men. The men women all wanted to sleep with but didn't want to because they were too busy shooting things and making stuff go BOOM. After a life of killing bad guys, having gratuitous sex just doesn't seem to cut it anymore and the only way of living is killing more bad guys and having a one on one fight with some Freddy Mercury wannabe in a Chainmail vest(Check Commando), at least that's how I imagine being an action hero.
So when I heard about Van Damme vs Seagal last year, I knew that it had to be a must read. While I'm unfamiliar with the films of said subjects, Seagal and Van Damme are those kinds of figures that make their way into the social consciousness. Even if you never saw their movies, you knew who they were, and you knew how they acted. Nothing about these guys ever changed throughout the years, they acted the same in real life like they do in the movies (well, one could argue there's not much acting going on in the first place, but you don't watch an action film for the acting, you watch it for the guns and explosions and cheesy one liners).
In the beginning of the script, we see a ninja spy figure hopping around the rooftops in the moonlight and breaking into Steven Seagal's house. We assume that he's on some operation that involves an action sequence but no, he's only on recon. The ninja takes what information he has and relays it back to... Jean Claude Van Damme. Apparently, their rivalry with each other has turned into a "anything you can do I can do better" pissing contest. So when Jean Claude discovers Seagal is writing an autobiography, then he concludes that he has to have one as well.
In comes Dave. He's a struggling writer who has just finished his passion project about a a foreign feminist that no one except him gives a crap about. Of course it doesn't sell well, and because he's short on cash to help a bunch of orphans, he reluctantly takes another job as Jean Claude Van Damme's autobiographer. It's through Dave that we are introduced to the wonderful world of Jean Claude Van Damme.
So we basically get a script that for 60 or so pages, engulfs us into the bizarre rivalry between Van Damme and Seagal. Dave is a passive character for most of the story and isn't much of a player in any of the events. The last act is when things really pick up, as the script turns from a comedy about Van Damme and Seagal into a full on spoof of Van Damme and Seagal movies. The action scenes are nothing too spectacular but there are some hilarious moments in the script that I would pay to see really happen between Van Damme and Seagal.
Really, the main character of Dave is rather inconsequential. He's basically our vehicle into the world of Van Damme and Seagal. Dave isn't the most compelling character to follow but we're not here for Dave, we're here to see Van Damme and Seagal in all their hilarity! We see how absurd this entire rivalry is, everything that could be made into a competition becomes a competition between them and it's fun to see how the stupid things these characters of the actors we love can be. Mirror on a stick anyone? (Read the script)
This has a direct to DVD feel to it. The script isn't calling for a huge budget because it's not a story with intense action (though there are some action scenes). It's a lampoon on two of the biggest action stars whose stars have faded long ago. The script doesn't take too many risks but damned if I didn't enjoy it. And it does teach you an important lesson in screenwriting, make it fun! Would they actually set out to make this movie? Chances are, no, their egos are too inflated to do such a movie. Alas the only Van Damme and Seagal movie that exists hovers between "never" and "going to happen". But one could dream.
3.5/5
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