Firebird

It's hard for me to confirm this movie with the sparse IMDb data and no photos from the film, but that's understandable. The timeline is right and I knew this film by the name Rock House. My roommate in college rented this and I got half the dorm to watch it and everyone agreed it was the worst film they had ever seen. There is something about the effort they put into the writing and entirely screwing up the social genres, the technical flaws in the story, and the shear lack of emotional performance but it all comes together in this emotion finger nails across a chalk board performance that leaves you wondering what were they thinking?

John Turner used to be one of the greatest cops in LA then drug dealers murder his wife, ever since then he plays by his own rules, out to nail every drug dealer in town warrant or no warrant. Jack Vacek who worked on Gone In 60 Seconds, The Junkman, and his own movie Double Nickels obviously put a lot of effort into this movie, it doesn't feel like a independent film, just a classic '80s action flick with great action sequences, well put together car chases, and a good soundtrack its hard to beat that. Its just too bad its such a hard movie to find and confusingly seems to have two titles Deadly Addiction as shown here while on the video and the start of the movie its called Rock House

Jack Vacek, who had previously made the low-budget car chase classic Double Nickels, scores again in this Dirty Harry clone about renegade L.A. cop John Turner (Vacek) who purposely defies his superiors by trying to expose a city-wide drug ring that takes him from California to Mexico and back. Along the way, he becomes a father figure to a troubled orphan kid and also falls in love with Sarah, a magazine photographer.

This film actually features pretty good stunts. There are a number of wild car chases and crashes, including a harrowing shootout in the film's climax. Look for cameos by future actress Constance Marie as an extra in a nightclub scene and H.B. Halicki as a motorist in the film's beginning.