4) Jean-Claude Van Damme In JCVD
Statham isn’t the only action star who’s proved he can also do this acting when he’s called upon to tackle it; in Mabrouk El Mechri’s meta, faintly autobiographical JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme commands the screen in a way he never did as a glorified fight-bot in countless 80s and 90s actioners.
The plot is simple, if a tad bizarre – Van Damme plays himself as a weary, jaded action star in financial difficulty, who gets caught up in a Brussels bank robbery – but it all just feels like an excuse to prove that JCVD has been otherwise wasted.
A centrepiece monologue, given straight to the camera by Van Damme, encapsulates his appeal in this movie: he’s desperately, heart-wrenchingly honest and real, cathartically explaining where it all went wrong in a turbulent career.