Until Death DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

Man, does Bloodsport seem like an eternity ago. That was Jean-Claude Van Damme's first major motion picture and, coincidentally, it's the only one of his that I own. There is only one other that I would own, but don't yet, Lionheart, and that about sums up my thoughts on Van Damme's interesting career. He was supposed to be the next martial arts sensation, and then just started slipping and slipping, picking worse projects as the years went on, and now he's slid so far down that he's making a "career" out of crappy straight-to-video releases like this one, quite badly as well.

This one features him as a lowlife cop, plodding through his miserable life with a failing marriage, alcohol and heroin addictions and he just can't seem to capture the ellusive Gabriel Callahan (Stephen Rea), his former cop partner turned baddie. He screws hookers and basically beats up anyone who gets in his way. Then he gets shot in the head which puts him into a coma which he gets out of and starts his little recovery and redemtion process and blah blah blah.

The script is absolutely terrible and I'm a little surprised, mainly because one of the writers has done actual theatrical movies before, big ones at that. Dan Harris, who co-writes here with no-namer James Portolese, has had a hand in writing X2: X-Men United, Superman Returns and has some projects in development that look rather big as well. I really have no idea why he'd do something like this, a bargain basement tale for frickin Van Damme, mind you. He didn't even do this with his regular writing partner, Michael Dougherty, with whom he collaborated on those aforementioned flicks. But, regardless of the reason, this is certainly not his best work here. The dialogue is terrible, the characters are as hollow as a baseball bat and the plotline makes you think that Harris and/or Portolese have never heard the term "rising action" before. The flick just flatlines along, dragging us through this mundane story until we get to the climax, which just barely ups it a notch from the rest of the movie. It's just some terrible writing, folks, but that's really nothing compared to the acting.

The role actually fits Van Damme nicely, mainly because he's a burnout actor and he's just transferring from being a burnout actor to a burnout cop. He mails the whole thing in here, and it's really painful to watch. I could mention the other supporting actors and actresses here too, and how uneventful they are, but you didn't know their names before this review, so there's no reason you should know them after this review.

It's really sad to see how far down the Hollywood ladder Jean-Claude Van Damme has slipped, folks. Even in his lesser flicks in the 90s, it seemed he was passionate or, at least, he tried to put on a good show. Now it just seems that he's succ*mbed to this B-movie lifestyle, and while that's fine since we won't see him at the theater for quite some time, if ever, I'm not keen on having to watch this crap of his on DVD. Even though I didn't pay for this DVD, I felt ripped off from the precious 104 minutes that I could've used to watch something worthwhile. Thanks for not trying, Jean-Claude...

Move along, there's nothing to see here...

The flick is presented in the anamorphic widescreen format, in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 format, mastered in high definition.

Boring. A full-cover shot of Van Damme with his gun and the title card on the front and a dopey synopsis, some random shots and the billing block and tech specs on the back. Blah.

If you really have a fix for some Van Damme, I'd advise you to go to the video store and steer clear of the new releases like this one. Go check out his big break in Bloodsport, or maybe Lionheart or Sudden Death or Death Warrant, because nothing he's done in the past 10 years has been as good as those flicks.