Monaco Forever

The version of this that I saw was 23 minutes shorter than the runtime listed in the IMDb, so, these comments may be only half valid. It was a multi-lingual effort, with English subtitles when the dialogue was in French, German or Italian - no dubbing. (The narration was in English.) Perhaps we are to be impressed with the language skills of the leading man. It's set in Monaco in the second half of the 1950s, about twenty years after the guy went from his native Germany to Washington, D.C. It fits that this occurred because of his mastery of linguistics. But then he returned to the fatherland to participate in WW II, his memories of which are shown to parallel much of what he experiences today. Now he is a jewel thief, and, we share some of his encounters on the day after a partially successful swipe: while hitchhiking, he is picked up by a gay, martial-arts-accomplished, French-speaking John Claude van Damme; he woos a lady-photographer, who, it turns out, is a pick-pocket, herself; and he demonstrates that craft, with a trio of females as his victims. My only negative impression is an occasional over-attempt at humor. Otherwise, it's a fairly unobjectionable depiction on film.

The Van Damme part of this short film-ette is one of its very short vignettes. One shouldn't try to discover a connection between the various part, but just enjoy each one as an independent project. As for Van Damme, he plays this role almost too well. Could it be type-casting? Might he be portraying his true self in an attempt to get this first acting contract? Ever since seeing it, I've wondered if the strong-man, super macho JCVD isn't just a great acting job. Good/Great actors, in any case, do just what a previous commenter complained about; they portray various types of people and obviously characters who may not be exactly who they are in real life. Gay or not, he plays the part well and personally I like to think he is!

I only saw Van Damme's famous Gay karate man sequence and it was really funny . This clearly shows Van Damme, has a ton of potential to be in a Comedy film, however i won't watch the rest of the film, because it has no Van Damme, and is probably really unfunny. You get to see Van Damme's famous kicks, and he is very convincing as a Gay karate man!. A friend sent me a clip of this, however after watching it, i have no urge to see the rest of the film, as it's cheap looking, and looks very amateurish, however i did really enjoy the scene i saw, and i do recommend it to all Die hard Van Damme fans that want to see everything he has done (like me), so that's why i reviewed this. *** out of 5