Intent to Kill

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.

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.

I don't want to go into the plot at all because it's the generic "tough cop, but with feelings getting a hard time from the commissioner, shooting and driving like crazy with a lot of broken glass and explosions" kind of a movie. But I like the aesthetics. The saxophon/synthesizer music, especially during a nighttime LA, the looks of the cast, the not alltoo cheesy dialogue. Tracy Lords was a perfect cast for this direct-to-video flick. And sometimes you like something for no reason than the above mentioned. So no, I don't care that the plot is thin and the movie just ends somehow. Best watched on a CRT on VHS.

Story line - very poor

Acting - mediocre to poor

Character Development - very little

Violence - heavy

Sex & Nudity - NONE

Tough cop Traci takes on a very bad drug dude, and in the end, she's the last cop still standing, mostly because it's her arrogance and stupidity that got the others killed. The best comedy moment (not intended to be funny) is when she seriously wonders what it was that she did wrong.

I expected the overall quality of the flick to be poor, and so wasn't disappointed in that regard. However, I was expecting a certain amount of eye candy, and the best this movie provided was a girl on a bicycle wearing a thong bikini. Doesn't Traci realize that nudity is the only reason her fans put up with the other inadequacies?

Traci is actually not a bad actress, but if she really wants to go mainstream and keep her clothes on, she needs to start hanging out with a better class of writers and directors. Continuing to be in forgettable flicks like this is what she's doing wrong.

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.