646f9e108c Anthony Stowe is a dirty cop, fighting to capture his ex-partner. His character, Anthony Stowe, is a narcotics lieutenant addicted to heroin, has a bad attitude, and everyone hates him, including his soon-to-be-ex wife. His ex-partner, Gabriel Callaghan is working to become the new leader of the gangsters in local organized crime. Callaghan sends his goons after Anthony, who&#39;s shot in the head and comes very close to death, falling into a coma. Months later, he awakens from the coma with the idea of finishing off his former partner and becoming a better person, and better husband. In New Orleans, the abusive narcotic detective Anthony Stowe is a dirty cop, addicted in heroin and booze, hated by his colleagues and divorcing from his wife Valerie. While trying to arrest his former partner and drug lord Gabriel Callaghan, the mission fails, two undercover officers are killed and the drug, the money and the monitoring tapes vanish. Later, Tony is shot by a criminal in the head and miraculously does not die. After months in coma, he wakes up trying to fix the errors of his past life. Though packaged and marketedjust another schlocky direct-to-video actioner, Until Death slowly reveals itself to be a much more low-key (and distinctly slow-paced) affair - with star Jean-Claude Van Damme tackling a character that&#39;s a far cry from those he&#39;s portrayed in the past.<br/><br/>Van Damme starsAnthony Stowe, a dirty, almost ridiculously grizzled cop who is uniformly loathed by everybody around him (that he spends his off hours having rough sex with prostitutes and getting high probably has something to do with this). Left for dead by his villainous ex-partner (Stephen Rea&#39;s Gabriel Callaghan), Stowe instead falls into a coma and awakens months later with a thirst for revenge.<br/><br/>Director Simon Fellows generally does a nice job of playing up the more dramatic elements within Dan Harris and James Portolese&#39;s screenplay, though there&#39;s little doubt that the film&#39;s overlong running time is occasionally just a little too pronounced (Stowe&#39;s post-coma recovery, for example, seems to go on forever). The inclusion of a few genuinely thrilling action sequences certainly goes a long way towards keeping things interesting, however, with a prolonged shootout within a diner an obvious highlight. Always a fan of Van Damme, I have seen every title of his since No Retreat, No Surrender and I can tell you right now, his acting in the 80&#39;s and most of the 90&#39;s was laughable. You don&#39;t watch a Van Damme movie for it&#39;s acting, you watch it for the fight scenes right? Not this time around. Until Death strongly focuses on its main characters flawed life. How a man who seemed to have it together at one point has completely lost it and is in a downward spiral full of drugs, hookers and a crooked runa cop. Wondering if Van Damme can pull it off? He does and continues in my opinion to prove that he is better then the low-quality DTV movies that he has been unfortunately starring in for the past 7 years. Due to that fact, if this movie were madea theatrical release with better funding and better actors surrounding our star, it would be amazing. Thanks to Van Damme and the director for at least trying to make this movie look the best it could, this movie is very good. Some fans may be disappointed with the lack of martial arts but this movie doesn&#39;t call for it. It would actually be out of place and pretty stupid for this guy to belethal a martial artistwe know Van Damme to be. Out of all of Van Damme&#39;s DTV releases, this one along with Wake of Death are his strongest and I strongly recommend that you check it out.
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