Intent to Kill

Why do the cops only have handguns? They knew exactly what they were doing, they set up a huge undercover operation. Why did they go out of their way to hit parked cars not anywhere near them?

Yahphet Kotto is the only person here who can act, and he's phoning it in. Right after this he'd join Homicide Life On The Street and do basically the same character but massively better. Traci's stuntwork is so bad she looks like she's drunk or stoned, and they had to do a lot of editing to make her appear mobile.

Almost all of the dialogue sounds ADR'd, and very poorly. Almost all of the action sequences are done in slo-mo, but so poorly I wonder if the director was crazy or lazy or just had to fill the run time and was desperate. Plot feels like it was written by a 6 year old who spent a summer watching really bad action flicks. Hero says this, boss says that, nothing ever gets resolved. Actually the script feels like it was written by an angry 6 year old. Like he got bullied at school. His parents didn't believe him, and now he's bitter. There's a ton of utterly pointless scenes which is weird given they only had to fill 90 minutes of screen time. Traci actually disappears for about half an hour and I wonder if its cuz she was so messed up on drugs they had to shoot more scenes without her. At no point is it clear exactly how the villains relate to the heroes. All we know is there's cops and there's gangsters. The final action sequence is incredibly lazy and looks like it was shot on the same night on the same street as the opening action sequence. BUT we do get the overused cliche of our hero walking away from a fiery explosion and looking disinterested.

Its a horrible mess from start to finish and the worst part is its not so cheesy you can laugh at it. Its just bad. Also I keep hearing this was rated NC-17 because of the violence and I think everybody including the MPAA ratings board must have been high on peyote. There's no violence here which would justify an NC-17. I have seen loads of R movies with considerably more violence.

What I see is someone who is trying to buildup a reputation in the industry as legit, after coming from an industry where the mainstream population is going shun you. You have to start somewhere and I'm sure it's not going to be at the top, so for starters I'd expect to see some of the "low budget" type films. I'd say she is still young enough to make the jump to mainstream files but I'd also have to say give her 15 to 20 years to make that jump without the stigma of the past hanging on. Take a look at her biography and see the time frame where she was in the porn industry and when she got out, adding that 20 years to that date brings us pretty close to the current time. So I really think she's got a chance at this and if she makes it, it will indeed be a rarity. Who knows she could be in the next blockbuster, these days you never know. But then that's just me, I'm one of those kooks that hang around to read the credits.

Intent to Kill is one incredibly hot movie! Traci Lords does her best as a really tough female cop. She doesn't even waste time with any cheap stunts. The stunts are first rate and acting is very good. ITK is serious business in terms of action movies. The plot twists and turns are much better than most of the garden variety action films. This is a film about drug use and drug dealing! ITK has been rated NC-17 for multiple reasons. Yaphet Kotto does a great job as the captain of Los Angeles Police Department. This crime thriller kicks serious you know what! It's worth the 96 minutes. The only problem with ITK was Salvador could have been cast better; he performs good although as a drug dealer he should have performed better.

A cheap but workable B-movie thriller with Traci Lords playing a renegade cop on the trail of a drug kingpin wreaking havoc in the city. This one is packed full of violent shoot-outs and assorted mayhem, so it breezes past, and if you don't mind your films low budget then you'll find yourself enjoying it a fair bit like I did. Watch out for Yaphet Kotto's cameo and a bad guy impersonating Tony Montana.

Traci Lords fits pretty well into the action genre - her pouting expression shows believable contempt for her enemies - but she is better suited to "bad girl" rather than heroine parts, IMO. In two mid-90s PM Entertainment productions, she played a cop in "Intent To Kill" and a professional thief in "Ice", and "Ice" was the better vehicle for her. But not only because of her role - she also got to kick much more ass in that one, while the script of "Intent To Kill" is poorly written. It has all sorts of separate threads that never really come together, and although the film opens with a bang (car chase, shootout, multiple explosions), then it slows to a crawl as we spent too much time with Traci's relationship problems with her unfaithful long-time (also cop) boyfriend. The result is a film that doesn't seem sure of itself and of the story it wants to tell. Another problem is the mediocre supporting cast, with the obvious exception of Yaphet Kotto as Traci's boss. *1/2 out of 4.