Mark Reviews Movies: THE LAST MERCENARY (2021)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 30, 2021

The most appealing and amusing element of The Last Mercenary is something that co-writer/director David Charhon's movie doesn't actually do. It stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, one of the handful of major action stars of the last two decades of the 20th century, as a former secret agent, now a hired mercenary, whose days of significant glory and heroism were left behind at some point in the 1990s. Back then, he performed all sorts of incredible stunts, feats of strength, and displays of courage—such as the countless waves of bad guys he has dispatched, the many undercover operations he has pulled off, or the time he broke free from chains by biting a padlock.

The man, named Richard Brumère and nicknamed "the Mist," is now only a legend—whispered about and lionized in intelligence circles, as his continuing adventures mostly go by unnoticed. It's clear that Charhon and co-screenwriter Ismaël Sy Savané have their self-aware tongues firmly planted in their knowing cheeks with this character, these descriptions, and Van Damme's casting.

Look, it's not as if the actor has been absent from movies as of late, but one does have to do a bit more searching for his output now than one would have had to do at the peak of his career. That's the way of most actors in general and, if Van Damme's contemporaries serve as further evidence, of action stars specifically.

Charhon gets in his good-hearted jabs at how time hasn't been as generous to Brumère's career, as everyone in the movie waxes nostalgic about the character's good old days but hasn't a clue as to what the guy is up to these days. There are a few flashbacks to those escapades, with Van Damme donning a wig and wearing a bit of more youthful makeup.

In the present, though, we're first introduced to Brumère in the middle of rescuing a hostage. He's wedged within a skylight, doing Van Damme's trademarked splits, but if the heavy shadow covering the character's face is any indication, that's almost certainly not the actor himself. Charhon could have tricked us with some digital trickery or even an inserted close-up, but one likes to imagine that the director is playing with the idea that we know that's probably not the movie's star up there. It's funnier that way, at least.

All of this is basically to say that the movie has a solid, meta-level concept about Brumère and how his career serves as a reflection of Van Damme's own. Van Damme seems a good enough sport about it, considering how regularly his character is both glamorized for his past exploits and subtly mocked for his relative inability to take on the responsibilities of age and not being an action hero anymore.

There's a funny joke to all of this, but it's one that the filmmakers and Van Damme himself seem incapable of fully embracing. The movie quickly bypasses all of these notions about Brumère and, by extension, Van Damme in order to give the character and the actor yet another, action-packed mission on which to embark. The major shift is that it's primarily a comedy. As for its brand of humor, the comedy here would be annoying, even if we didn't catch a glimpse of what it could be doing instead.

As such, it's a plot-heavy affair, filled with lots of gags and misunderstandings and general errors, as Brumère comes out of the shadows in order to help his teenage son Archibald (Samir Decazza) in Paris. Dad wasn't there for the kid, on account of being abducted and tortured when the son was born. Now, Archibald is accidentally caught up in a potentially world-devastating scheme, which involves an arms dealer (played by Nassim Lyes), who has assumed the son's identity and criminal immunity (as the kid of a pair of secret agents), and a high-end EMP device that could cause a lot of problems.

Basically, there are a lot of allegedly comedic mix-ups (Archibald doesn't know Brumère is his father, and dad keeps being interrupted when trying to tell him) and setpieces (A government official, only in his underwear, rides a scooter through the city, and there's a weird plan that has Brumère dressed as a woman and trying to cuddle with his son). There's some more routine action, too. Some of it is staged well, although the early gag of hiding Van Damme's face becomes an apparent necessity.

Beneath the surface, The Last Mercenary has some clever ideas. The surface, though, is littered with little else besides dumb ones.

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