While he has had ups and downs in his career I maintain a massive Jean Claude Van Damme fan. His more recent projects like Jean Claude Van Johnson, Pound of Flesh, and the new Kickboxer films have been some of his best stuff in sometime. His latest film The Bouncer aka Lukas looks like a more mature direction for his roles, but does it still bring the usual Van Damage fans love or will it get thrown out of the party?

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​The Bouncer follows a nightclub bouncer in his fifties whose taken punches, literally and figuratively, and struggles to raise his 8-year-old daughter. I have seen and likely own every film Van Damme ever made and can’t lie that I look forward to every new project he is a part of. I saw a trailer for this film sometime back with the title Lukas and it had a gritty tone I loved and looked like it could be yet another of the better films as of late he has been a part of. While there isn’t near as much action here as I expected it still manages to work pretty well overall.

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The film is pretty slow paced by design, which I think is important for this characters story. Instead of just being another bad ass action guy who never loses this time around Van Damme portrays a flawed father trying to just survive and thrust into a situation he wants no part of. This pits him in some fights and gunplay, but not quite like we are used to from him. While he does kick some ass he also takes plenty of beatings himself and you are never quite sure how this is all going to play out for him.

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Although I was bummed we didn’t get more of the usual Van Damage I still enjoyed this film quite a bit for what it is. For those with issues regarding foreign films be warned that this film is mostly subtitled at least until a dubbed version is released. You can check out The Bouncer available now On Demand from Ocean Films.