Watch Until Death For Free

Undescribable Perfection

Too much of everything

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

If you're going down the B-movie road, you gotta know what you're going for. This is a B-movie all the way: somewhat nonsense plot, action, drama, nudity, all we've asked for.The movie is alright, but it's hard to believe all that could be possible. I mean, it's total nonsense fantasy, but in a believable world, which gives a sour taste, but, like I said: "you know what you're in for here".Nothing to be said about Damme homeboy. He's just alright, I like him and his robotic acting.Fine movie if you're into some B-movie marathon or something.

Until Death is set in New Orleans where narcotics cop detective Anthony Stowe (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is involved in a bust to capture drug lord Gabriel Cllahan (Stephen Rea) but it goes wrong & two cops are killed in the process as Callahan gets away. Addicted to drugs & generally happy to break the law whenever he feels like it Stowe continues his pursuit of Callahan but ends up getting shot in the head & going into a coma. Six months later & Stowe awakes to find another man has moved in with his wife & Callahan still at large, after an attempt is made on his life Stowe decides to continue his search for Callahan but his pregnant wife is kidnapped as Callahan wants to end the feud between the two once & for all which suits Stowe just fine...This American, English, Bulgarian & German co-production was directed by Simon Fellows who also directed JCVD in the equally awful Second in Command (2006) & is quite simply a terrible film that goes for drama rather than action. Available in two versions there is the US cut which was 'supervised' by JCVD himself & the European cut supervised by director Fellows & since I live in the UK it's safe to say I say the European cut which actually runs about five minutes longer & has a more downbeat ending. For a start Until Death makes the fatal mistake of being as boring as hell, seriously this thing is so slow moving it's untrue & it long outstays it's welcome. The action scenes are really poor & unimaginative, there are three shoot-outs & that's it with no trademark JCVD fights or punch-ups at all or at least none that I can remember. The character's are poor, JCVD is mean & horrible before the come but all sweetness & light after? Eh? How did that happen? Considering his wife is having another mans baby JCVD forgives her easily & all the secondary character's barely figure with the main villain Callahan getting about two minutes of screen time until the end when there's supposedly some big twist about who he is but ultimately it means nothing. Some JCVD DTV efforts haven't been too bad & he's still capable of turning in a decent flick but this is just rubbish that most of his fans hoping to see some action will be disappointed with.The action in Until Death is some of the most lethargic, uninspired & downright boring I have seen in a while with a couple of shoot-outs for the first hour & a half & nothing else. Seriously that's it. The final shoot-out is as dull as dishwater & feels like it goes forever, a couple of BMW's crash but nothing that exciting & it all boils down to yet more shooting at each other from a distance. Boring. There's one amusing bit though when he threatens to take a prostitute in unless she has sex with him & he does her bent over a pool table & once finished she looks at him & says 'your not human', if that happened to me I don't know whether I would be offended or pleased!With a supposed budget of about $15,000,000 a lot of Until Death was actually shot in Bulgaria. It looks competent enough but there's no real style or flair here at all. The acting is poor & the way JCVD goes from bad cop to good must have something to do with his sideburns since he has some at the start but when he recovers from his coma they are gone.Until Death is one of those dull lifeless by the numbers JCVD piece of rubbish that he really shouldn't be making, it's the type of film that even if you watch it on telly for free you feel disappointed & quite frankly cheated. One of JCVD's worst.

I hesitate to criticize Van Damme's performances, because I have been a huge fan of his since I was a kid and used to stay home on weekends and watch Kickboxer and Bloodsport over and over again. But in Until Death, it seems that he has gone from making his unique style of action and martial arts b-movies to making your standard, everyday action b-movie. It's like his personality has been consumed by the cheesy film surrounding him.For his part, there is definitely a lot more acting in his role than what I generally associate with him. His is a complex character, a detective of questionable integrity suffering from a drug addiction, struggling through major family problems, and unable to catch the bad guy at the top of his most wanted list. To say his character is heavily flawed would be a massive understatement, but for the most part he pulls it off well.Where the movie goes wrong is in the story and the choreography of the action, such as the climactic gun battle, which is either overdone or underdone, I can't decide which. Van Damme plays Anthony Stowe, a New Orleans Detective with a heroin addition that shows all over his body, yet no one ever seems to notice, despite the fact that he is not only shooting up on duty, but shooting up in his office at the police station. Clever! He has a beautiful wife and various other women chasing after him, which is ironic, since he generally displays all the charm and romance of a steel-toed work boot. Soon we learn of his one major flaw – he has a habit of reporting the misdeeds of other police officers, coming off as the upstanding, by-the-book officer of the law, while at the same time breaking the law much more himself. It's not very far into the movie that we realize that something bad has to come of all this. (spoilers) Then, about halfway through the movie, all realism is thrown out the window and we get this bizarre revenge story. Stowe is captured by the bad guy and shot in the head, under the chin and (despite the doctor explaining later that the bullet lodged against the inside of the top of his skull) clearly exiting out the top of his head. I'll accept that as just a standard goof (maybe the fx guy was a little too overzealous), but later, as the doctor is explaining the miraculous survival, he mentions that the nasal cavity has been completely destroyed.I'm no doctor, but I have a feeling that if the nasal cavity was destroyed, Stowe would never speak the same again. Not in this movie. Evidently a gunshot to the head is an injury that can only be cured by pure rage, and Stowe had a healthy dose of that rattling around in that indestructible head of his. But the screenwriters seem to think that a gunshot to the head and something like, say, a stroke, will have the same affect on speech patterns. I doubt that. Then again, these are the same writers who have a doctor explaining that, after being shot in the head, Stowe is "very lucky to still be alive." That's a pearl of medical wisdom if I've ever heard one!The climactic scene of the film is preempted by a ridiculous monologue by the bad guy, which eventually evolves into the age-old stand-off between the good guys and the bad guys, who enter the scene one by one at just the right moment, until everyone is pointing a gun at someone else and doing some tough talking. This is followed by an age-old gunfight, which looks like every other gunfight that ever took place in an old warehouse in a sub par action drama, and a nice little piece of video evidence at the end to tie up any loose ends. I've seen lots of movies that are much worse than Until Death, but I have to say that I liked the old Van Damme better, where he wasn't just another brooding guy with a gun and a burning motive for revenge.

Growing up in the 90's it was almost routine to watch a Van Damme movie where he jump kicks everyone into oblivion and does a split in the process. This movie is quite different for he plays the vigilante crooked cop for once, maybe its either his age or the role but it was far from what I've gotten used to....and may I say this is for the better.In this caper, Van Damme plays a down on his luck crooked cop who is gunned down by his former partner and put into a coma. When he comes out of it he realizes the error of his ways and vows to take out the man who put him in this position.As the film progresses its unnerving to see Van Damme in a role that hit so close to home with his real life drug addiction, but still its quite a difference from his pretty boy savate kick days of the 90's.Stephen Rea rocks the role he plays, but the real star was Van Damme for once. As he gets older his days of diving through windows and taking on Bolo Yeung are over, so roles like this should become more common.The movie itself is a decent flick if you're into the darker cop genre so its worth a look 6 out of 10