Gritty, harsh, intimate and even poignant — these words don’t seem to fit the typical fare produced by the so-called “Muscles from Brussels,” Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yet in his latest film, each and every one of those words applies. JCVD is the sort of film that die-hard fans of Van Damme saw because they were hoping for hilarity mixed with the kind of face-kicking fun seen in Timecop, Bloodsport and even Street Fighter. What they got, however, was something far more subtle and genuine.

Plucking events from Van Damme’s own life, including his bitter custody battle, JCVD is part autobiography. The line between Van Damme as a character in this film and Van Damme the man is blurred to the point where it’s hard to tell what’s acting and what isn’t. This aspect, however, is part of what makes JCVD so utterly mesmerizing. In a lengthy scene delivered brilliantly through direct address, Van Damme delivers a heartfelt monologue in which he appears most sympathetic and honest, describing his career in real life through the fiction of the film.

Perhaps more startling than the film’s depiction of Van Damme is the manner in which it’s filmed. In what must have been a deliberate choice, director Mabrouk El Mechri gives JCVD a muted grittiness in perfect contrast to the glossy Hollywood look that the bulk of Van Damme’s films have. It is as if El Mechri is saying cinematically, “That’s not the real Van Damme; this is.”

The film shifts perspectives forward and backward through time in a way that urges the audience to view Van Damme from all sides and all angles. It shows the media and the public’s obsession with his persona and the seeming impossibility of his escape from it. Now past his prime, Van Damme says in his direct address to the audience, “This movie is for me. There we are, you and me. You [the audience] made my dream come true. I asked for it. I promised you something in return, and I haven’t delivered yet. You win, I lose.” When literally faced with Van Damme on-screen, it’s hard to take these words as scripted; they feel a little too true.

Those hoping for JCVD to be deliciously bad are sure to be disappointed, but to anyone else, it’s better to expect the unexpected and witness Jean-Claude Van Damme playing the role of a lifetime: himself.