Until Death (2007)

Brilliant and touching

As Good As It Gets

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I had fun spotting actors who have appeared in Eastenders, the Casualty franchise or the Doctor Who franchise. Which means that although this film is set in New Orleans, it was filmed somewhere in central or eastern Europe.Jean Claude Van Damme is a rogue cop Anthony Stowe, a heroin addict, his personal life in the sewer, his wife is pregnant by another man and other cops do not like him.Stowe is hung up in nailing a villain called Callaghan (Stephen Rea) but Callaghan was his former partner who went dirty. When one of his goons shoots Stowe in the face, he miraculously survives but goes in a coma.When Stowe emerges from his coma, he decides to become a better person, he rights some wrongs such as when he betrayed another officer and rekindles his relationship with his wife.Until Death is a serviceable film, it never amounts to be more than a time filler. You have fun seeing Brit actors attempting to do hard boiled American accents. It lacks a lot of action because it wants to focus on the story. This is a shorthand way of saying that the action star is too old for for doing the fight scenes. Stephen Rea turns up for a glorified cameo for the pay cheque.

Like a good few of the films that Van Damme's been making of late, UNTIL DEATH is an attempt to do something different. It isn't even an action film really, although there are two or three decent action scenes thrown in to please the fans. No, UNTIL DEATH is a human drama, an exploration of the human psyche and Van Damme is the character at the centre of it all. For the first time in his career, he plays a really murky character, neither out-and-out good (as in 90% of his roles) or out-and-out bad (like the killer he played in REPLICANT). No, his character is a narcotics cop who just happens to be hooked on heroin himself, and he's just as unpleasant as you'd imagine.Then, around halfway through, his life catches up with him and he's put in a coma. When he comes out of it six months later, he's a changed man and we start seeing the real, genuine side of his character without all the rubbish. What makes all this more than watchable is the actor himself. I keep saying this, but Van Damme has really grown over the years and he puts his heart into his performance here. I can't fault his acting, and indeed he's the best actor in the production. He certainly puts the likes of a slumming Stephen Rea and the awful Selina Giles to shame.In any case, the story is engaging, moves in quite a lot of different directions, and Simon Fellows does an okay job behind the camera. This one was shot in Bulgaria, but you wouldn't know it, as it has a slick, glossy Hollywood look. Once again, there are a couple of guys out of the UK TV series EASTENDERS hanging around, Gary Beadle and Stephen Lord, and they're both pretty good in their parts. This can be quite a depressing film in parts and if you're looking for excitement you'll find none, because it isn't about that. Instead it's an intense, dark human drama and Van Damme alone holds it all together.

Well for once Van Damme's script is not "They killed my brother" and he's reprising the role of the Dirty Lieutenant- a far superior flick about similar issues. He's a cop, with some integrity issues and there's a barely-believable art-heist super villain dude that's out to kill him. Luckily we don't have a ton of screen time with that cartoon. The movie centers on Van Damme's character and him stumbling his way through a lot of pain in his life. Various addictions are involved and the acting is better than your usual Van Damme flick, but do bear in mind this is slightly sub par, this is no Harvey Keitel, this is Van Damme. Some of the plot twists were a bit dopey unrealistic and heavy handed, like they were written by a woman.

I must admit, I only saw the last 30-45 minutes on Dubai TV or some other movie channel you can receive in the GULF. But I was taken a back on how good it was- For a Van Damme straight to video.I liked the story line, the atmosphere - and hey - Van Damme seems to have picked up a few acting lessons along the way. All the other actors do their best (or at least: not their worst!) I could not stay myself from watching the through!!! Maybe it's not a McTiernan film, and maybe not original, but somehow it seems to work! And we don't see van damme as a martial arts fighting machine, but as a normal cop with a (bad) history, walking around with melancholic guilt-ridden face. Hey - what a welcome change !! Honestly: definitely worth watching!!!