Tag: Cop Flick

Shitty Movie Sundays: Samurai Cop

Samurai Cop, the 1991 stinker from writer/director/producer/editor Amir Shervan, has more shitty filmmaking moments than are possible to recount in any review of reasonable length. Here’s a sample:

  • Fight scenes and car chases have sped up footage to simulate quickness. It’s not subtle, either — approaching Benny Hill Show levels of speed.
  • A great deal of dialogue was recorded in post. That’s not unusual. But Shervan did many of the voices himself, dubbing the voices of stars and bit players, alike. That is unusual.
  • There are a lot of cops in this flick. Many of them wear uniforms. Some of those uniforms don’t have badges.
  • Star Mathew Karedas cut his glorious locks after principal shooting wrapped, but was called back months later for reshoots. Shervan put a ridiculous wig on his head with little regard to whether or not it looked right. It does not look right. In at least one scene, it briefly popped off of Karedas’s head.

Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Samurai Cop”

Empty Balcony: Officer Downe

Not all comic book adaptations feature superheroes and supervillains chasing down the one mysterious MacGuffin that can either save or destroy the universe. Sometimes, all a comic book hero wants to do is clean up the streets of the big city.

Part Robocop, part drive-in homage, and part splatterfest, Officer Downe is the cinematic adaptation of the comic of the same name from writer Joe Casey and artist Chris Burnham. Casey also penned the screenplay for Officer Downe, while directing duties were handled by Shawn Crahan. If that name is familiar to some of the Loyal Seven readers, that’s because Crahan’s day job is as a member of heavy metal group Slipknot. Other members of the band get in on the fun as extras and minor characters. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Officer Downe”

Empty Balcony: Runaway

Tom Selleck at peak mustache, Gene Simmons, THAT Gene Simmons, playing a mad scientist who has an army of killer robots, in a science fiction film written and directed by Michael Crichton? Yes, I will watch that.

From 1984, Runaway is a look into the near future, where robots are a part of everyday life. They cook our food, wash our clothes, construct our buildings, and guard our businesses. But like all machines, they aren’t perfect. That is where the dedicated men and women of the police department’s runaway squad come in. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Runaway”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Cyber Tracker 2, or, Century City Bullet Storm

Sometimes miracles do happen, and a shitty, straight-to-video movie finds enough success that it gets a sequel. If viewers of Cyber Tracker were left feeling a little wanting, if they felt like they needed more Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson and more stiff androids with bottomless gun magazines, then they needn’t have feared. Wilson, director and producer Richard Pepin, and producer Joseph Mehri felt this emptiness — this animalistic need for more shitty action — and goodness gracious they filled it. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Cyber Tracker 2, or, Century City Bullet Storm”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Cyber Tracker

It’s the future! Sometime around 2015 or ’16. Professional kickboxing legend Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson plays Eric Phillips, the head of a Secret Service detachment guarding Senator Bob Dilly (John Aprea). Dilly, while not in Washington or running for reelection, has been working with mega-corporation Cybercore to develop the Computerized Justice System, whereby crimes are prosecuted by a computer, and swift justice is carried out by androids called ‘trackers.’ Should one be convicted of murder, a tracker will appear out of nowhere and carry out sentence. There’s nothing a person can do. No deals, no appeals. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Cyber Tracker”

Shitty Movie Sundays: The Killers Edge, aka Blood Money

What a gloriously stupid movie. The Killers Edge, from writer/director Joseph Mehri, has everything I’ve ever wanted out of a 1980s-90s-era straight-to-video action flick. A hunky leading man called from the lower depths of Hollywood, a screenplay that could double as a McBain sequence from The Simpsons, a soundtrack made by one guy with a synthesizer, and plenty of casual gunplay. Sure, fans of hoity-toity cinema will turn their noses up at such trash as this, but we shitty movie fans, we know better. There’s something they will never see in a film like The Killers Edge, and that’s their loss. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: The Killers Edge, aka Blood Money”

Empty Balcony: Wind River, or, Longmire: The Movie

Every year Hollywood releases a handful of thrillers that are well-made, good entertainment, but are fairly anonymous. They fill a market for solid mysteries. They can’t scratch the primal itch that makes big time action flicks so reliable at the box office, but they have the benefit of treating their audience like adults, which is nice. Wind River is one of those films. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: Wind River, or, Longmire: The Movie”

October Horrorshow: Maniac Cop

With a title like Maniac Cop, there’s no way this movie is going to be good, right? The title is simple and to the point, and instantly conveys a large amount of plot to any potential viewer that happens to pass by the marquee. But boy, oh boy, it sounds like a first draft title. If all other films had used their initial titles, we wouldn’t have Alien, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Unforgiven. Instead we would have Star Beast, Journey Beyond the Stars, and The Cut-Whore Killings (although it would have been ballsy for Clint Eastwood and company to try that last one). Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Maniac Cop”

Stallone Month: Eye See You, aka D-Tox

What in the world is this movie? If a viewer is like me, then they have never heard of Eye See You, or D-Tox, or The Outpost, or whatever title producers attached to this redheaded stepchild of a movie. From 2002, but filmed in 1999, Eye See You was a film beset by reshoots and plagued by unhappy men in suits, resulting in a film that trickled out into the public without fanfare or wide release. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Eye See You, aka D-Tox”

Stallone Month: Cop Land

Audiences haven’t gotten a lot of Sylvester Stallone in an ensemble cast. Sure, there was a fairly large gathering of stars in the Expendables flicks, but Sly was the star of those films, full stop. Cop Land came after a string of mild box office successes and a couple of flops. Sly’s stock in Hollywood was on the downswing, and when this movie came out, it was touted as a comeback, of sorts. Continue reading “Stallone Month: Cop Land”