Setting new standards in eloquence, and winning awards left and right for being an ideal spouse, Stowe’s late arrival for a cosy dinner with the missus at the local karaoke bar turns out to be one letdown too much for her and prophecies of divorce are consequently radiated from her indignation. Perhaps a little harsh one might conclude, Stowe did not purposely leave her waiting, he had been very busy doing a hooker up the jacksy over a pool table in a seedy bar. Some people were just born impatient.

Slightly irritated by this conjugal disintegration, alongside the continuing lack of success in tying his nemesis to the ridges of his fist, Stowe descends further into the breaches of drugs and alcohol. His perforated countenance was probably gestated in a womb full of whiskey – amniotic fluid? Fuck off, double scotch’ll do. Quick cuts to him shooting-up off the highway come to take the place of gunfights and deeds performed in the name of the legality machine; yet despite this, he finds time nevertheless to gallivant into a shower of shrapnel on occasion – be careful you nefarious lawbreakers, this man will snort the criminality off your face!

Eventually, the nasty business of inevitability comes rushing down the stairs, bawling, and shouting something or other about “Van Damme can’t be a deadbeat junky, this just ain’t right.” Hence we witness Stowe take a bullet to the face, lounge about in a coma for a while, wake up a fresh faced saint and go on to rebuild bridges long-pulverised by petulance and disinterest.

Until Death presents us with two diametrically opposed Van Dammes: one whose gullets bark curses upon all, spitting expletives from the bags under his eyes, urinating over the edicts of his chief with nary a thought for upset feelings; then there’s the other one who wastes time banally making amends and righting wrongs previously revelled in, whilst simultaneously being sheathed in the foul smell of tender piano music. Needless to say, this latter incarnation deserves to be harpooned into the sea of sickening redemption from which it came. Comas can be a traumatic event in a life, I will admit that, but spin your mind backwards in time to the year of 1990, the date of Steven Seagal’s dalliances in coma sleep. In Hard to Kill, Seagal exploded out of his coma, dragging his bearded self off to an electrifying training montage, whereas Van Damme in Until Death seems to get impeded by his ABCs – a sad state of affairs, you’ll undoubtedly agree.

What is the reason for this perverse transmogrification? Is it merely narrative convention defecating over us once again, just as in Superman 3?

Well no. Observe the ambulations of Van Damme pre- and post-coma closely, scrutinise every fine detail, and you will discover the glaring truth: sideburns. That’s right, as stated heretofore, facial borders of the utmost tranquillity decorate Van Damme’s head, polished ornaments of celestial beauty, but when he ends his enforced hibernation, they are not there. I believe the entire film can be reduced to this transition to sideburn absence. Stunned into consciousness by the gaps on his face, Van Damme lies shocked on his hospital bed, “where the fuck did they put my sideburns?” inquires his dreary pores. Sideburned Van Damme was able to accomplish the most violent of tasks at high tempo, springing into action at the flicker of an awry bullet, while also weighed down under the burden of nihilism and shackled to the throes of addiction. In contrast, this emaciated skull bereaved of all former sideburn glory wanders around aimlessly, pining over his erstwhile disregard for the human race and mourning the very loss of his sideburns that has caused this disgrace.