After he had been primarily due to cheap productions such as “Kills them!” Throughout Jean-Claude van Damme reached a wide audience again in 2021: In the Netflix production “The Last Mercenary”, the former Martial arts superstar showed with allusions to previous hits-such as the famous balancing scene from “Bloodsport”-not only courage to go to self-irony Action star age is still quite fit and agile.
At that time, David Charhon, who also wrote on the script – was on the director's chair – and now delivered further cooperation in the same functions that hits the same notch. In silly disguises or under ridiculous wigs, van Damme did not have to force himself this time, but the action comedy falls “Mission: Gardener – the green thumb of the revenge“Noticeably bloodier.
Jean-Claude van Damme is still damn fit beyond the 60!
The high -ranking State Secretary Serge Shuster (Michaël Youn) fell out of favor with the French Prime Minister. So his name lands on a list of death alongside four other government officials. A special unit under the direction of the coarse Phoebus (Jérôme Le Banner) then storms Shuster's huge estate and initially stunned employees and family members to blur all the traces afterwards. But the raid calls Shuster's mysterious gardener Leo (Jean-Claude van Damme) on the plan: As a former elite soldier, he defends his boss-and offers the martial intruder with garden claw, hay fork, spade and roses paroli …
»” Mission: Gardener – The Green Thumbs of Revenge “on Amazon*
If Leo is preparing for the upcoming fight in a montage peppered with many close -ups of tense muscles and tendons, this naturally immediately arouses associations to a similarly cut scene in “Rambo II – The Mission” when Sylvester Stallone gets up for his use in the jungle. Once Serge is boasting on the side of his protector with having trained karate for seven years – while Van Damme was wearing the black belt during his youth. In “Mission: Gardener – The Green Thumbs of Revenge”, such pointed winks rarely enjoy, but otherwise vomiting babies or an old Wehrmacht uniform in secret basement have to serve for rather flat gags.
The sometimes somewhat sprawling quasi-monologues of Serge are more funny, who doubt the protecting of the protector with the green thumb full of smoke. Michaël Youn (“Divorce Club”) specialized in over-the-counter comedies, a sometimes somewhat reserving but successful large-scale politician parody succeeds. However, Jean-Claude van Damme, as a taciturn and nature-loving Haudegen, have the most sympathy when he provides an improvised diaper from scraps of fabric and demonstrates existing acting talent in an unexpectedly moving scene about the fate of his film mother-similar to his soul striptease in “JCVD”.
Michaël Youn is a real comedy professional-but we would still like to have seen more from Van Damme's hand edges and less of his chatter.
The rather grim and dark side can always be seen from the rather uniform and often silly scenario, which is also expressed in quite hearty spanking scenes. The colorful sea of flowers of the badly artificial garden backdrop with green screen backgrounds is so contrasted by the exaggerated brutal use of various garden tools in rather short skirmishes, in which the (art) blood only splashes into some crispy sayings.
If the action scenes remain very manageable in their length, the very short final duel stands out particularly negatively. Perhaps this comparison is a bit unfair, but in a similar figure constellation the stylized final fight at “Universal Soldier” (1992) was still a real feast for the eyes. In “Mission: Gardener”, on the other hand, a particularly high kick by Van Damme literally goes under in the intermediate thunderstorm.
Conclusion: Jean-Claude van Damme offers silliness and splashing artificial blood en masse! Despite in phases, “Mission: Gardener – The Green Thumbs of Revenge” would have been good at a little more action and less chattering.