Excessive Force (1993)

Police detective Terry McCain (Thomas Ian Griffith) leads a raid on Sal DiMarco (Burt Young)'s operation in an action packed gun battle. Sal is released in court due to excessive force. Sal lost $3 million and he wants his money back. Terry's boss Devlin (Lance Henriksen) is tired of Terry's short fuse. He plays the piano to wind down in Jake (James Earl Jones)'s jazz club. His police partner is Frankie Hawkins (Tony Todd).Thomas Ian Griffith can kick but he has absolutely no charisma. The guy is better off as a stuntman or a non-speaking thug. He should not lead a movie no matter how low the expectations. He fades into the background. It's odd to have so many better actors on the screen. This could be a functional 90s action B-movie if a more compelling personality is leading.

At first I thought this was a generic 90's Segal/Van Damme wannabe production and only looked at it because Charlotte Lewis graces the screen. She's of Irish/Iraqui/Chilean heritage and is quite the exotic looking hottie. So I thought I'd spend some time fast forwarding through a lame actioner looking for a little Carlotte Lewis sugar. But something surprising happened, the movie was actually good. It has several strong points not he least of which is that in addition to setting the movie in Chicago, the creators actually shot in in Chicago, as opposed to Toronto. I love playing the "Guess where they shot that" game. EXCESSIVE FORCE shows off the Windy City in its best and worst lights. You get the beauty and the warts. I think viewers get a feel for the city. Charlotte Lewis is of course beautiful, exotic sultry and just about anything you could want in an action star's girlfriend. She even gets to use an Uzi and that scene will get your heart rate up. Thomas Ian Griffith turns in a more intelligent script and performance than I thought him possible. Really pleasantly surprised. he also seems to know the city a little more than the usual Hollywood writer and that's always good. His script even has a little texture to it. You've got a great supporting cast too what with James Earle Jones, Lance Henricksen and Burt Young all turning in their usual solid performances in whatever roll it is they were playing. Ian Gomez, who was pretty funny in The Drew Carey Show has a bit role too. What you have here is a surprisingly good movie that has plenty of bone crushing action and is just good looking enough and just smart enough to raise it above the howling pack. I wish Griffith would have kept making movies because he could have turned into a really solid lower budget action movie creator. So too paraphrase old Tymie British poet Robert Herrick, "Gather ye Thomas Ian Griffith movies while ye may".

Thomas Ian Griffith stars as Terry McCain a loose cannon cop who declares war on a mobster (Burt Young) when that mobster kills McCain's friends, however when McCain spares the mobster and finds him dead when he comes back to arrest him, McCain finds a corruption in this bland, predictable and downright awful movie. Excessive Force is a movie so generic that everything is spelled out before the opening scenes, a truly terrible movie which even wastes James Earl Jones.

When I rented this film, I had to keep on looking at the box just to remind myself of the title. Fittingly, the generic title makes sense for this completely unoriginal film. For what it is, the action isn't bad, and there are a surprisingly high number of familiar faces, but the plot is as standard as it gets. Anyone even remotely familiar with this genre should be able to recognize how typical this movie is, and they should be able to spot most of the plot twists a mile away. Much like I had expected, this film is watchable enough, but it wasn't particularly entertaining, and it is entirely forgettable.