• Directed by Gregory Dark
• Written by John Power
• Starring
  • Wings Hauser
  • G. Gordon Liddy
  • Alex Cord
  • Roberta Vasquez
• Produced by “Gregory Brown” (Gregory Dark)

Wings Hauser is one of those people for whom I feel a moderate amount of sympathy. True, he’s had a pretty good career, enough to keep bread on the table; but he’s probably one of the best actors never to be even close to the big time. He’s not a has-been; he started in B-movies, he’s still in B-movies, and he’ll probably stay in B-movies till the day he dies. Which means that, even though he’s a good performer and fun to watch, you’ll only see him in fare like this.

Here, Hauser is that rare cinematic beast, a good cop. His name is Arliss Ryder, and one supposes he became a cop because he’d already gotten tough in his childhood fending off all the schoolyard bullies who picked on him because of his name. In any case, in this slightly amplified Los Angeles, he’s a gentle but firm soul: Cheerfully herding hookers off the street, rescuing druggies who’ve managed to crucify themselves, etc. On one such errand of mercy, he gets shot for no reason by a suspicious gunman.

Sometimes a fascist with a cigar is just a fascist with a cigar.

He wakes up in the special police clinic, being ministered to by the ice-queen Dr. Cane (Marie Chambers) and fawned over by his live-in Kristin (Andy Sidaris regular Roberta Vasquez). Dr. Cane patches him up good — although he doesn’t remember getting shot in the lower back.

When he gets home, he’s met by Captain Quinton (Alex Cord, and if you’re as much a geek as me you remember him best as “Archangel” on Airwolf), who informs him that he’s being transferred to “Strike Squad,” supposedly the elite squad of the whole police force. “Squad” (as its known to its members) is the brainchild of former Chief Miller (G. Gordon Liddy), who’s now crusading as a mayoral candidate on his “tough on crime” platform. Actually, that’s not a good description; it’s more of an “over-the-top apeshit on crime” platform.

Ryder shows up for his new assignment, to find out that Squad is entirely composed of skuzzy guys who fulfill every inference ever made about firearms as substitute phalluses. He’s partnered with Detective Stoddard (Jesse Doran), who’s unshaven, stinky-looking, and actually eats a tomato by cutting off pieces in his hand, as if it were an apple. Oh, and he’s quite insane. Ryder discovers this as they do what Squad apparently does, which is to drive around until they feel that there’s a crime in progress somewhere near, then unload Big Gulps of whupass. Stoddard does so, somehow knowing that there’s a Satanist rape going on nearby, and plugging the perp — as well as blowing away a bystander before collapsing into gasping giggles.

Brion James, the world’s least comforting man of the cloth.

(I have to tell you, I already feel soooooo much safer.)

The next Ryder hears, that evening, Stoddard has killed himself. Quinton calls him to the apartment for the investigation, but they easily rule it a suicide; Quinton’s response is that he must have been despondent over his “error” earlier. Ryder doesn’t see that Stoddard also gouged out a section of his lower back.

But Ryder doesn’t get lonely, because next day he has a new partner — a fat black man called Joker (Sy Richardson). It’s easy to see why — he giggles so maniacally you expect to see that he’s got the Boy Wonder tied up over a pool of boiling oil or something. He’s also got some rather violent homoerotic tendencies that Ryder has some trouble curbing (thank heavens they’re not actually aimed at Ryder).

And as long as we’re pointing out phallic imagery… (Of course, from this still, you can’t see the heavy-duty “polishing” action going on here.)

In between all of this, Ryder keeps his regular checkups with Dr. Cane, who surreptitiously examines his back each time with a device that looks like it fell out of the Ghostbusters’ locker; and each time, he finds himself a little more violent on the street, a little more uncontrollable. And the next time he goes into the bedroom with his girlfriend… let’s just say she comes out severely unhappy.

Since we’re privy to more information than Ryder is, we quickly figure it out: Dr. Cane inserted a device into Ryder’s back which allows his wilder impulses to come out, curbing the ability of the cerebrum to mediate those urges. (Given that police departments have a documented tendency discouraging the hiring of too-intelligent applicants, I’m thinking that cops with even more impeded brains is not what we want here.) It can all be traced back to Miller, with Quinton’s reluctant cooperation; it gives them “an edge,” and supposedly they need every possible advantage in the urban jungle.

Will Ryder figure it out and get the thingie out of his back before set to “self-destruct,” just like Stoddard (and later, Joker)? Will he avoid being taken out by the other Squad goons? Will he be able to knock Miller on his fascist ass?

“And DAT’S how we make-a de marinara in de old country!”

Hauser is good, as expected; his progression from honest cop to a frenzied animal, barely held in check, is solid and believable. How many actors do you know who can keep their characters sympathetic even after they’ve raped a hooker? Richardson, as Joker, is both annoying and creepy when he lets his sadistic homoeroticism get out of control. But…

This is yet another of those movies where you just have to wonder, Why in the hell would the bad guys do what they do? Squad shows up daily on the news for their “overexuberance”; with this kind of public relations nightmare going on, why would Miller be pushing for them to notch the device higher and go a little crazier? Hell, for a climax, he has all of the police, Squad and not, overrun the city in riot gear for a complete cleanup that looks like a replay of Krystalnacht. Hint, Miller: If you want to win an election, keep your trained goons from making a public laughingstock of you until after the ballots are counted.

On the other hand, it’s not like Miller’s terribly stable himself. You may have noticed his almost complete absence from the plot as described, but he keeps showing up in short scenes, playing S&M games with hookers and watching videotapes of an ultra-creepy street preacher (Brion James, rolling his eyes like Cookie Monster). He also has a videotape collection of his Squad members, including their final deaths, which means that each Squadster has had a surveillance team on him 24-7 for weeks. In a city on the edge of a criminal meltdown, that doesn’t seem like an efficient use of manpower.

“I’m okay. I’m all right. Really. I’m fine. Never better. Any more espresso?”

If you’re a Hauser fan, or if you really want to see Liddy horsewhipped to the point of ecstasy, then you’ll probably want to see this one (although if it’s the latter, please don’t tell me). But other than that, the whole thing revolves around such stupidity on the part of the heavies that it becomes burdensome to sit through by the end. Given that director/producer Gregory Dark’s real career has been making porn and softcore flicks, one wonders if this movie began with a resolve to keep excessive tawdryness to a minimum, at least by his then-current standards — and they he discovered that he didn’t know how to handle something more approaching a real story.

Some Notable Totables:

(from the Unrated Director’s Cut)

• body count: 41 (including a first for this website, death by short-circuited orgasmatron)
• breasts: 6
• explosions: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
  • Marie Chambers (Dr. Cane) played the Kyrian Arbiter in the Voyager episode “Living Witness”