Review of Until Death (2007) by Phil H — 20 May 2012

A nice change for Mr JCVD here, he plays the anti hero whom everybody despises in his local police station. Mr JCVD is a bad cop who has a drug addiction which clearly affects his judgement leading to an undercover cop getting killed by another ex-cop friend of his who also turned into a bad guy...must be something in the water huh.

Its clear this is where Jean Claude has turned the tables and started to take roles with a bit more meat, roles that challenge his acting skills where he isn't just a kicking machine, and it works. Of course there is still plenty of gun action and Van Damme is still a bad ass but there is a strong undercurrent of real acting involved too and he's not too bad.

The film is held up with the help of Rea as the ex-cop turned drug kingpin (massive career swing there and it seems to be going well for him) who sneers his way through the action until the rather predictable conclusion. Yes its predictable and still cliched like all action thrillers but the European version has a different ending which does have a slightly original twist...for Van Damme anyway.

Still can't escape the 'straight to DVD' abyss but this admittedly is a much better film than his other action fluff, the Euro version has the better ending.