In “Pound of Flesh,” Jean-Claude Van Damme can still do the splits, still pull off a nude scene and still feels the need to do one.
And his Belgian-accented threats still sting.
“You see thees Bible?” he purrs to the pretty Manila bartender who served him a Cosby-spiked drink the night before. “Eet weel leave BEEG bruises. And I WEEL beat you weeth eet.”
He brought his hotel room’s Bible with him “for inspiration.” Not really. He woke up in a Manila hotel in a bath of ice, with the water turning red. His bed is covered in blood. There’s no sign of the damsel he rescued and bedded the night before.
But there is a telltale scar. Somebody stole a kidney. So he is understandably insistent in questioning the barmaid.
His brother (John Ralston), who needs the kidney, blurts out that “I should have KNOWN something like this would happen.”
But that’s merely the second funniest line. After the Biblical threat.
“Pound of Flesh” is a solid if occasionally silly B-picture of the sort that JCVD used to make, before “JCVD” suggested there might be more to him than mere “Muscles from Brussels.”
He’s 54, his ex-special forces character wears glasses, and his fights in this fists-and-firearms hunt for a missing kidney are a tad gingerly fought. That’s mostly because the character is supposed to be in pain and down one kidney. But these brawls, mainly with the late Darren Shahlavi, a tough Brit-villain who died earlier this year, seem a little tentative. This sort of martial arts movie is a young leading man’s game.
Deacon, Van Damme’s character, and George (Ralston) and Deacon’s old underworld contact (Aki Aleong of “House of Sand and Fog”) have mere hours to find the Irish tart (Charlotte Peters) who hustled Deacon out of a kidney, before that kidney is sold to some rich person who needs one.
But there’s little urgency to the proceedings, little of that famous “D.O.A.” clock ticking down toward someone’s doom. Director Ernie Barbarash cannot manage a decent chase scene, and Van Damme, after a couple of brawls, settles into a first-person-shooter charge into a fortress mansion for the finale.
The moral components of the movie — George is a college professor and a devout Christian who doesn’t want others harmed in the hunt for this stolen kidney — are laughable.
And the plot, once it is laid out at about the 30 minute mark, is by-the-comic-book routine.
But you have to hand it to JCVD. He has found a fresh formula for a brawny action star’s dotage. Yes, they all turn to guns to settle scores their movies used to settle with their fists. He, at least, has found a character with a good excuse. He’s down one “Pound of Flesh.”

MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and some sexuality

Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Charlotte Peters, Darren Shahlavi, John Ralston, Aki Aleong
Credits: Directed by Ernie Barbarash, script by Joshua James. An eOne/Phase4 release.

Running time: 1:44