MOVIE REVIEW: “The Last Mercenary” is Van Damme Bad

The PC police will have a field day with lines like: “Thank God the bulletproof tuxedo was made in France. Had it been made in Bangladesh, I would have been dead by now.”

And, in another scene, somebody lets loose with a stream of verbal diarrhea which is thoughtfully designated by a language expert as a “Bantu dialect”.

If that doesn’t make you mount your high horse and scream “cancelled!” Alexandre Lazare (Alban Ivanov), a bungling government functionary, takes a scooter ride through Paris in only a helmet, his underwear and our tut-tutting.

Anyway, Belgian action star Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in this French action-comedy “The Last Mercenary” as he looks for laughs in all the wrong places.

Van Damme plays Richard “The Mist” Brumere, a secret agent who must protect his son Archibald (Samir Decazza) after he has been confused for Simyon (Nassim Lyes), an arms dealer who has built his whole person around Al Pacino’s persona in the movie Scarface.

As Richard, Van Damme is a decrepit-looking version of who was in the 80s movie “Bloodsport.”

No doubt Van Damme fans will note how his good looks have vanished under a riot of wrinkles which make you think “Damme, he’s old!”

So Richard’s warrior reputation, marked by roundhouse kicks and balletic splits, are not enough to upgrade a fossil to a man of action. Even when it is conveniently revealed by one agent that he might also be a sexual athlete: “He boned my wife”.

This being a French movie set in the city of love, Paris, we expected some touching moments and we got them when Van Damme tries to bond with his son. But this display of vulnerability conspires with his wrinkly appearance to make him look even older.

These dips in the movie’s testosterone levels might’ve been compensated by the Scarface-obsessed Simyon, a cartoonish arms dealer from the fictional country of Taarghistan.

That’s if Simyon’s parts were broadened into a larger subplot parodying Scarface. Thereupon, Simyon might’ve saved this movie with the many ways he could play on Tony Montana’s legendary line “Say hello to my little friend”.

Also, he could’ve mangled his consonants into an unintended comedy of errors à la Montana.

However, the closest he comes to being Montana is when he is watching “Scarface” in a screening room with the same tropical sunset wallpaper found in that movie.

All told, “The Last Mercenary” has some funny moments courtesy of the stoner Momo (Djimo) and Paul Lesueur (Éric Judor).

The latter combines many short tone groups in one sentence with a slow delivery to imitate the speech pattern of Barrack Obama.

If this was intended as an impression of the former African American president, I am sure Donald Trump would approve as Lesueur’s speech confirms him as a retard.

Van Damme has been to hell and back wrestling personal demons.

As he faced off against himself, he has exhumed a career buried by misadventures which belong in that pile of cocaine which ultimately administered Tony Montana’s coup de grâce in Scarface.

Although his silken martial arts skills are still top drawer, it is his acting chops which really bottomed out with this dud of a movie.