The action star is back in an ultraviolent comedy broadcast on Prime. He gives the answer to Michaël Youn.
What could have looked like Rambo with the characters of The Goat? Fans of French comedies and American action films will have the answer by discovering The Gardenerultraviolent “buddy movie” with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Michaël Youn broadcast on Prime from this Friday, January 10.
While Guillaume Canet reinvents himself as a member of GIGN and performs his own stunts in To Lifeanother action thriller also available from this Friday on the competing platform Netflix, Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to his first love in The Gardener.
JCVD plays Léo, a gardener former member of the special forces who will come to the aid of a senior official at the heart of a state secret (Michaël Youn) who is threatened with death by hired killers. A sort of solitary hero like Rambo, he plays opposite the troublemaker Michael Youn for a poorly matched duo like Perrin and Campana in The Goat.
“I wanted to exploit the codes of the thriller that made Jean-Claude famous, but much more in the first degree than in The Last Mercenaryour previous film together, which was more of a tribute,” David Charhon explains to BFMTV.com. “From the start, I wanted it to go all out. I wanted it to be violent.”
Blood spurting
Enough to frighten his producer a little: “He was obviously thinking about the audience. But he followed me and he is ultimately very happy with the result. If it were up to me, I would have gone even further”, assures this director specializing in action comedies from the box of On the other side of the ring road.
Mixing comedy and ultraviolence, The Gardener dare an explosive cocktail in France. “We know that comedy and action go together rather well because the action pushes the energy of the characters a little. But does the thriller, that is to say the violence, the blood that spurts , innocent people dying, can offer so many opportunities for laughter?”
“Thanks to the madness of the bad guys, which defuses each time there is something very violent, we bring a balance,” responds the director, who called on the comedian Ragnar le Breton, the rapper Kaaris and the wrestler Jérôme le Banner for a trio of henchmen straight out of Guy Ritchie.
No big differences
If Jean-Claude Van Damme assumes in The Gardener a part of self-deprecation, he nevertheless avoids falling into self-parody. He has succumbed too often in recent years, from the series Jean-Claude Van Johnson to the cartoon Minions 2. And David Charhon insisted that he not do his famous splits in the film:
“Everyone was shocked! Jean-Claude had already done it in The Mercenary and he really wanted to do it again. He wanted to do it for his audience, because he has a real love for them. But if we remade it, the film would become a parody. And I didn’t want him to do yet another parody, but to play a character.”
The director remembers the actor’s astonishment. “He told me, ‘But David, I still have to give them what they want.’ I answered him, ‘What they want is you, Jean-Claude. You’re not just your splits. There are entire films where you didn’t just do splits. , what you’re offering is a duet’. He liked it.”
Always in good shape
On screen, JCVD is still in great shape. In The Gardenerhe performs the majority of his stunts. “He continues to do everything because he is someone who trains a lot. Sport is his life. His physical condition is connected to his mental state. If he is not physically well, he won’t be good.”
Before each scene, the actor must practice. “We can’t shoot in the morning if he hasn’t done his workout. He won’t be able to get his head straight,” explains David Charhon. “Even if I make a tight plan, he needs to do sports first, he needs to do push-ups. He tells me that it oxygenates, that it brightens his eyes, his pupils.”
As The Last Mercenarywhich was a hit on Netflix, The Gardener should have a bright future on Prime. What to hope for a third film from the director with the action film icon. “I would like to make a third film with him that is not a comedy, but a pure action film.”
