There are also a few rare tender moments where Van Damme lets his emotional guard down long enough to joke about how uncomfortable he is playing against type. Van Damme never really tries to escape his former self, but it is kind of endearing to see him, as embarrassed papa Richard, try to be a better person.
In “The Last Mercenary,” Richard only returns to France after he learns that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has mistaken Archibald—who, thanks to his dad’s skillful negotiation, was living under an assumed name, and with diplomatic immunity—for Simyon, a callow arms dealer from the fictional country of Taarghistan. Richard is the only one who can protect Archibald long enough to not only catch Simyon, but to also draw out the French officials who have protected Simyon from arrest. A pokey comedy of mistaken identity ensues.
Unfortunately, there’s only so much funny in farcical scenes where Richard tries to work and bond with the movie’s supporting cast members, particularly goofy comic foil Alexandre (Alban Ivanov) and under-developed sidekicks Dalila (Assa Sylla) and her brother Momo (Djimo). Alexandre is a doughy white guy, so there’s an unfortunate gag where he, wearing only an oversized helmet and a pair of tighty-whities, rides a scooter around Paris. And Dalila and Momo are both inner city youths, so Dalila holds her own during a physical altercation before Van Damme rescues her, and Momo sasses back at a room-full of white socialites after they confuse him for a waiter. Some Borscht belt comedians would blush at this creaky material, were they still alive to do so.
But Van Damme's struggle to become comfortable in his own over-sized persona is sometimes a subject of fun and humor. He’s been wrestling with this topic for years now, perhaps most overtly since “JCVD,” a lopsided, but sometimes unexpectedly affecting 2008 meta-action-comedy. Van Damme has enjoyed a few moments of transcendent navel-gazing since then, like when he re-united with the penguin mascot from “Sudden Death” in the recent (and mostly entertaining) Amazon series “Jean-Claude Van Johnson.” “The Last Mercenary” continues that trend in a handful of stand-out scenes, which is probably more than one can expect given that Van Damme’s late period career is more like extra innings than a brand new ball game.
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