While the general idea of the movie (that of a grizzled undercover cop teamed up with a crusader attorney to take down corruption in the legal system) sounds great, the movie totally fumbles the ball by trying to do too many things at once. We get a movie about the undercover guy working the streets to take down some evil kingpin played by Antonio Fargas. Simultaneously he's suspicious of his peers and trying to get the dirt on them. At the same time, Peter Weller is in a court case to save some young guy who is wrongly accused of murdering an undercover cop (something the superior film NARC explored later in much greater detail) while he also goes after the corrupt cops, the kingpin, AND juggles his two relationships with his fiance and enemy attorney. Any one of these storylines would have made for a decent movie (as NARC proved), but they just don't belong together in the same movie. The results get so muddled and the tone so inconsistent that it just gets baffling, silly and boring by the end.
Things completely jump the shark when the bad guys try to get away, so one of the heroes does a reverse-COMMANDO and jumps onto their plane, rides outside as it flies around, sabotages it, and then leaps out into the ocean. Was it really planned or just a spur of the moment decision? The movie doesn't ever really tell you. I believe it was played for humor but to get so ridiculous so late in the movie clashes heavily with the somewhat more serious tone 99% of the rest of the film seemed to be going for. What makes it all more frustrating is how well James Glickenhaus directed his previous films and how well he handles a few select scenes here. There's plenty of opportunities for him to go further and make this film darker, more disturbing, or at least more engaging, but he drops the ball several times in favor of a lighter and more brisk pace.
All in all this film falls victim to the same general air of absurdity that hurt many other late 80's police movies. The cycle was certainly nearing its end and veering into comedy, perhaps as an overcorrection from the extremely grim cop dramas of just a few years prior such as CRUISING and TRIPWIRE.
Things completely jump the shark when the bad guys try to get away, so one of the heroes does a reverse-COMMANDO and jumps onto their plane, rides outside as it flies around, sabotages it, and then leaps out into the ocean. Was it really planned or just a spur of the moment decision? The movie doesn't ever really tell you. I believe it was played for humor but to get so ridiculous so late in the movie clashes heavily with the somewhat more serious tone 99% of the rest of the film seemed to be going for. What makes it all more frustrating is how well James Glickenhaus directed his previous films and how well he handles a few select scenes here. There's plenty of opportunities for him to go further and make this film darker, more disturbing, or at least more engaging, but he drops the ball several times in favor of a lighter and more brisk pace.
All in all this film falls victim to the same general air of absurdity that hurt many other late 80's police movies. The cycle was certainly nearing its end and veering into comedy, perhaps as an overcorrection from the extremely grim cop dramas of just a few years prior such as CRUISING and TRIPWIRE.