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Le Dernier Mercenaire
The Last Mercenary
France 2021
produced by Olivier Albou, Olias Barco, David Charhon, Jakéma Charhon, Jean-Charles Levy, Eponine Maillet, Nicolas Manuel, Vlad Riashyn, Laurence Schonberg, Artemenko Yuriy for Forecast Pictures, Other Angle Pictures/Netflix
directed by David Charhon
starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Alban Ivanov, Samir Decazza, Assa Sylla, Eric Judor, Patrick Timsit, Miou-Miou, Djimo, Nassim Lyes, Valérie Kaprisky, Philippe Morier-Genoud, Michel Crémadès, Ismaël Sy Savané, Yury Sapronov, Aleksey Gorbunov, Fatsah Bouyahmed, Ouidad Elma, Fabien Ara, Bilal El Atreby, Blaise Afonso, Olivia Algazi, Vincent Scalera, Zachary Shadrin, Joseph Rapp, Steven Frebourg, David Charhon, Alain-Guy Aknin, Oleg Nemirovskiy, Jade Charhon, Christophe Dupuis, Gaël Guegou, Karina Bershadskaya, Anna Vlasova, Oleksandr Panichuk, Stanislav Babzhenko, Ivan Gubanov, Melvin Nkosi, Yasin Faradzhallakh, Sergey Shadrin, Solal Charhon, Noah Charron, Anna Konik, Ihor Ciszkewycz, Arthur Cauras, Mike Gassaway, Sergey Shlyahtyuk
written by David Charhon, Ismaël Sy Savané
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Once upon a time, Richard (Jean-Claude Van Damme) has been a top secret
operative, but then he has quit his job to go mercenary - but not before
granting his son he has never seen Archibald (Samir Decazza) lifelong
immunity and a lifelong allowance from the state. But now Simyon (Nasim
Lyes), a baddie with a predilection for the movie Scarface (the 80s
version), has stolen his identity and tries to make arms deals in his
name. An over-eager but not very intelligent gouvernment official,
Alexandre (Alban Ivanov), somehow finds out about this and cuts off all of
his privileges, which means before long, Archibald's foster father Fernand
(Michel Crémadès) is killed and Archibald is arrested. Now this is a
problem for Alexandre's assistand and secret puppetmaster Paul (Eric
Judor), as it is him who gave Simyon Archibald's identity for a bit of not
quite legal arms smuggling - so he gets Alexandre onto the radar of the
secret service. Of course, Richard learns about all of this, and it
doesn't take him long to free his son, and snatch Alexandre out of the
interrogation room under the watchful eye of the secret service. But to
clear both their names, they, helped by Archibald's friend Dalila (Assa
Sylla) and her brother Momo (Djimo) haved to uncover the plot at the
center of it all, the smuggling of a superweapon out of the country, and
they ultimately succeed to do so during a big dinner party at a foreign
embassy, uncovering the misdeeds of many ministers in the process ... Crime
and espionage comedies have had a long tradition in France, at least since
the 1950s and Eddie Constantine's Lemmy
Caution flicks, and probably hit their high in the 1970s and
80s with films like The
Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe and a string of movies written
and often directed by Francis Veber. But to have a star of 80s macho
action movies star in a film of the French tradition is at least a novel
idea, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, who with age proves a good instinct for
choosing roles against the grain, does an ok job for sure. The film as a
whole is a bit formulaic and a bit too reminiscent of above-mentioned
movies of old, and lacks in depth - but it's also entertaining and at
times actually hilarious, so if you don't set your expectations too high,
you might get a kick out of this one - though truth to be told, this is
not a movie that stays with one for long (though probably longer than most
of Van Damme's 80s and 90s output).
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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