11 Movies That Should Really Have Sucked (But Somehow Didn't)

7. JCVD (2008)

JCVD There is no way that anybody could have convinced me that a movie starring Jean- Claude Van Damme, playing himself, in a meta-crime comedy could do anything but suck, and yet here I am, totally admitting that I was wrong, and that JCVD was surprisingly awesome, despite the fact that it sounds like the sum of a bad joke. Yes, this low-budget movie from 2008 centres around the idea that the real Jean Claude Van Damme - down on his luck with just a bunch of straight-to-DVD titles under his belt -gets caught up in a robbery. What happens next is only ever unpredictable, and though the movie starts off feeling like some twisted spoof, it's a surprisingly candid and emotional slice of filmmaking. Where did this idea spur from? I have no idea and i'm not sure I want to: what's undeniable is that this movie definitely features Jean Claude Van Damme's greatest performance to date. I know that sounds crazy, give the subject matter, but JCVD is so brilliantly weird and wonderful, it just works.
Contributor

All-round pop culture obsessive.