Street Law

'Street Law' is interesting if you're a fan of Jeff Wincott. It has some cliches typical of dtv fare - underground fight tournament, big bad villain, revenge plot - but it isn't horrible. You do have to buy-in to the fact that a long haired muscled martial artist with fighting experience also doubles as a successful lawyer though.

John Ryan (Wincott) has gone into hock with a loan shark to the tune of 78k on behalf of some of his poor clients. Enter Luis Calderone (Paco Christian Priesto) as his childhood friend who went to prison after an incident involving both of them. He's built himself up to be a formidable gangster who buys out Ryan's debt, bribes key people, implicates him in a murder in a bid to own him. John is told all he has to do is win some underground fights he runs and he'll be free. Of course, all Luis wants is sweet revenge.

What's holding it back is some poor choices. There's a "capture the flag" element here to the fight scenes that adds nothing. Also a dreadful use of slow-mo, camera work that doesn't even capture blows landing. Plus after the build up between main characters (all Luis wants is sweet revenge) the finale is a letdown. Most of the supporting cast don't standout either.

'Street Law' doesn't look horrible, but you've seen the sum of it's parts done better elsewhere. Priesto made for a decent bad guy and fans of Jeff Wincott will find bits to like here, but this isn't the best flick he's done or even a decent dtv trip on it's own. It's also the second team-up Wincott made with director Damian Lee and of course filmed in Toronto.

A street wise lawyer deep in debt is forced to repay by participating in illegal martial arts fights. Jeff Wincott exhibits his martial arts skill throughout the entire movie. The story is decent, but being in the martial arts myself, I thought this aspect really delivered.

As the credits for "Law Of The Jungle" started to display, my expectations sank greatly. First, the credits identified the producer of the movie as Ashok Amritraj, a producer who has produced an unbelievable amount of shoddy schlock. Then the director credit came up, identifying the director as Damian Lee, who has directed a lot of really bad movies. But the credits also revealed that star Jeff Wincott was one of the producers. Maybe, I thought, he would bring to this movie what he had learned in his American movies. (This movie is Canadian)

It didn't take very long to realize that this was turning up to be a very bad movie. In fairness to Wincott and Lee, they were working with a really terrible script. (Oh, wait - no fairness to Lee, since I just remembered that he wrote the script for this movie.) It takes about half an hour for the movie to develop something of a plot, and it's very slow-going afterwards. The movie is stuffed with talk talk talk - and not interesting talk.

What about the fight sequences? Well, I'm pretty sure martial arts fans will be greatly disappointed. Lee screws up these scenes like he does with the other parts of the movies. He does make Wincott get hit with a lot more blows than you usually expect the protagonist to get in a movie like this, but other than that interesting aspect, the fights are horribly done. Lee incompetently uses techniques like slow motion, bad camera angles, and very one-sided fights for the most part.

A message for Wincott: Make regular trips to your barber. The long hair look you have in this movie makes you look ridiculous.

A movie that goes 100 miles an hour to open up the film, not with fast paced action, but rather with choppy and erratic scene transitions and editing! Street Law!!! A film where the fighting scenes are in super slow motion and dull, yet confronting an old dude, now that is action packed! Where we get butt fondles, fighting attorneys and a guy who wants revenge because he and his childhood friend apparently did a petty crime and were treated like grade a felons...

The story, well, guys yell to start the festivities out and then we watch a guy running through the woods so he can miss a deer. This can be forgotten as it seems totally irrelevant to the plot until the end. A lawyer who owes a loan shark big money for reasons unclear has his debt bought by an old friend who wants his old buddy to do a stupid fight with the unnecessary step of capturing a flag. The friend refuses so bald guys get beat, others paid off and soon the lawyer is forced to partake in the game and professes that he is clean while he apparently took out a huge loan from a loan shark...

Jeff Wincott is the star here and he is a guy you have probably seen, you just do not know the name. I have seen him in several films and in each one his hair is totally different so he does look different in each role in a film that is not very good... The girl is pretty attractive and does have a nice butt though...

So, the film is not boring thanks to the fact no scene really lingers all that long and sometimes we are thrust into a completely unrelated scene out of nowhere! I mean, what was the point of showing a scene in the opening then using it again later? The most boring part are the fights in the ring as they are generally slow paced and lack action; seriously, the guy yelling at the other guy telling him he was evicted was more exciting!

I just caught this film when I was away on holiday and being a martial arts movie fan I thought I'd check it out, but I have to say it was diabolical.

The fight scenes are slow and poorly choreographed, the acting is laughable and the direction is deplorable. They must have pulled these actors off the streets and thrown them in front of the camera.

When you look at what people like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were doing over 20 years earlier it makes you wonder how these people have the face to make such rubbish. It really is THAT bad.

Don't bother spending any money on this film, buy your wife some flowers or something like that, you'll get a better result!