Malevolent

Although Lou Diamond Phillips is the star the Malevolent one in Malevolent is Edoardo Ballerini, a most diabolical serial killer who not only is good at his work, but pretty good at making cop Lou Diamond Phillips look like the guilty party.

It's a rather far-fetched yarn that Malevolent is spinning. Some of the premises of the story and the motivations of Ballerini are quite illogical as Mr. Spock would put it, even from the evil mind of a serial killer who doesn't think like the rest of us.

Kari Wuhrer who has done a couple of other films with Lou plays a topless dancer and someone that Ballerini is fixated on. She could provide the clues necessary to Lou to stop the freak.

While all this is going on, Phillips is under suspicion due to a shooting incident where his former partner was found to be dirty. His new partner, Gwen McGee isn't quite sure she can trust him and she's cutting him quite a bit of slack to get the job done.

Too many illogicalities keep Malevolent from being a top rate police drama thriller though the cast does its best.

... I have to say, this picture really holds your interest. You really feel for the detective being framed.

The acting was great. I was at every turn and twist in the movie,

glued to my seat anticipating the next move of the murder suspect and the Detective.

You really want to kill this guy and get to the bottom of the crime.

Also haven't seen such great car chase scenes since " Bullitt" and "The French Connection" Maybe I'm dating myself, but I will leave it up to everyone else.

I would have given it a 10 rating ,but I missed a few minutes getting the "Popcorn"...

If you are a person who likes to check out made-for-DVD movies, there is one film company you should be aware of - and not for positive reasons. That company is Cinetel Films. More often than not in their movies, they use footage from big budget major studio films, and in "Malevolent" they do this twice. I didn't recognize the footage from "The Corrupter", but I certainly recognized the climatic vehicle chase as being taken from "Marked For Death". As for how the rest of the movie appears, it's low budget but has some decent production values like good photography. The script, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The hero makes some pretty dumb decisions along the way that prolong things - if he had been smarter, things would have been wrapped up much quicker. And when things are wrapped up, the movie abruptly ends - the movie really needed another scene after the climax. Not the worst movie made by Cinetel Films, but there's no real reason to seek it out.

Lou Diamond Phillips & an actor I never heard of turn in decent, but unremarkable performances in this routine thriller, Lots of car chases & crashes etc. nothing new or different, BUT it is acted & produced competently.

rating **1/2 72/100 IMDb 6

Where to begin? This is one of the biggest pieces of crap that I have seen in a long time. Come on my four year old sister could make a better movie with a camcorder. This movie is extremely slow through the first hour, with little, to no sembalance of a plot or story. Lou Diamond Phillips acting was sub-par as usual. The editing was also very poorly done. At one moment you are on one side, the the other, over and over again. Then the ending leaves much to be desired. The story, if you can call it a story has no closure at all. The horrible ending is previewed by a car chase with a power ram and a bmw. The power ram bounces around like a ball, it is pretty funny. I strongly recommend not wasting your time on this movie. It isn't even one of those bad movies that are entertaining because it is bad. This movie just plain SUCKS