Excessive Force

What starts out looking like a vanity project for Thomas Ian Griffith, eventually morphs into a pretty good action flick. There are some pretty good actors that contribute mightily. Burt Young always delivers an interesting performance, with bad guys his specialty. Here he dishes out some out of the ordinary violence. For the first half of the film, I was wondering what James Earl Jones was doing in the movie? Only in the second half does his character gets more involved. Griffith high kicks his way through a nice assortment of bad guys who have zero character development. Towards the conclusion a twist is delivered that I did not see coming, and Lance Henriksen delivers the goods, as he too has little to do until the last part of "Excessive Force". Overall an entertaining film that delivers what it promises. - MERK

I really enjoyed this film. But not because of his action scenes, which action-crime films usually offers. The strongest edge of this film is acting crew. I mean, check it out: Thomas Ian Griffith (known from "Karate Kid 3" and "Vampires", the leading man here, he did a fine job, but on some moments pretty shallow performance, nevertheless, he is good), Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Alien 3, AVP, OK, no surprises here, this commanding and great actor appeared in many low budget films, so it's not surprising at all), Charlotte Lewis ("Pirates" and "Men of War", well, I think she was chosen because of her beauty, nothing more), Burt Young (Rocky films, he is a good actor and I usually expected him in supporting roles in big budget films), W. Earl Brown ("Deadwood", he is great, and this was one of his first works), Tony Todd ("Candyman", great, scary actor, known for his trade mark height and deep, spooky voice, well, he appeared in most of these low budget films, so it's not surprising at all) and James Earl Jones ("Star Wars", now... I was really confused about him here, what a hell? How did he get here, the best actor in the film... in such low budget film, well, maybe he liked the crew too). And I think that acting crew is the best thing in this film and it's worth watching because of it.

Now, when it comes to script and plot, it's an average revenge seeking film, I mean this film was really unknown, and yet they put a challenging taglines like "Meet the new contender", "In 70s, we had Bruce Lee, 80s Chuck Norris and now in 90s... meet the new guy", all that exaggerated claims... and in the end... no luck. I think that Griffith is a good actor and a good martial artist, but this kind of movies can't do much for you... If you are a fan of these kind of films, you can easily enjoy it.

Terry McCain and his team of Chicago police officers bust up part of mob boss Sal DiMarco's operations. The trial falls through due to the use of excessive force, but $3000000 from the bust goes missing. When DiMarco kills both McCain's partners in an attempt to get the money back, McCain goes after him but decides to spare his life. The next day DiMarco is found dead and McCain realises that there are crooked people around him who are using him to do their dirty work and that they'll soon need to kill him to tidy it all up.

Seeing the cast list in my TV guide I assumed that this would be a classy little thriller so I decided to give it a go. When the opening credits made it look more like any one of a million `straight to video' martial arts films I realised that I had been duped a bit, but decided to give it a go anyway. The plot (written by Griffith himself) is basically the normal one for this type of thing – cop is framed and must fight an army to clear himself and take down the bad guy. It is delivered in quite a good way so it never feels as lame as it is if you actually think about it later. The `twists' are expected – or at least you know there will be twists as there always is in this type of thing.

For an action film I must admit that I found the action scenes to be quite workmanlike and even dull at times. It is evident that Griffith had been watching the films coming out of Hong Kong at the time and had wanted to try and emulate some of that. This can be seen in the two handed gun play he does as well as the scenes in the jazz bar (both of which show that he had seen John Woo's Hard Boiled at least). Sadly without the same style he never gets close and most of his fights are good but far from anything impressive or spectacular. Despite these influences the film still falls into the old clichés, so we have a few scenes of T&A (both actually quite nice – Lewis is better looking that she appears and Cruzat only input is to wear very small underwear and walk across a room - yummy!)

Griffith actually struggles to carry the film and I didn't feel that he had the screen presence he needed to do it. At the start of the film I didn't think he had the looks of a leading man and looked more like a support bad guy – nothing in the film changed this view, although he did do quite well with some of the more `emotional scenes'. Happily the support cast is full of familiar faces, although why they all signed up for this is beyond me! The famous support is split into two camps – those that make the film better and those who seem to be slumming it. James Earl Jones and Burt Young are definitely among the `slummers' and seem confused as to how they signed up for this. In the other camp Henriksen raises every scene and is better than his stereotypical role should have been, while Todd (Candyman) is lively and enjoyable. Charlotte Lewis used to be in Grange Hill as a youth but her English accent doesn't get in the way – and the T&A clause in her contract shows her to have grown up nicely! Sadly she has little to do but be naked or be saved by McCain!

Overall this is not an awful film but it is a very ordinary one. If you have a choice between a blockbuster and this then I'd be tempted to pass on this but, out of a like for like choice this is actually pretty much par for the course. Not great in any sense of the word but just about has enough going for it to justify watching it if there's nothing else on TV.

The most interesting thing about this film is that it failed to lauch a leading man career for Thomas Ian Griffith. Griffith had a starring role as the villain in 1989's The Karate Kid Part III. I remember at the time seeing the trailers for this that I wasn't surprised to see the actor who brought the terrifying Terry Silver to life being given his own film. It seemed like an obvious move. He had good looks, impressive physical martial arts skills, and was a charismatic actor as well. So why did it bomb at the box office? Having just re-watched the film, these are my thoughts.

It's just not a good movie for one. Excessive Force is what is known as a "star vehicle." A film written solely to cater to an actor's strengths. Interestingly this vehicle was written by the star himself. The real problem is the film's premise, so it was doomed from the start. Griffith should have starred in a martial arts themed movie rather than a karate cop crime thriller. Just imagine if Jean Claude Van Damme had tried to start his movie career in a cop thriller where he does spin kicks rather than the martial arts tournament films Bloodsport and Kickboxer. He may never have had a career. Griffith was trained in taekwondo, which specializes in kicks and especially head kicks. I lost count of how many spinning hook kicks Griffith used to defeat an enemy in this movie. It just doesn't seem as tough or as useful as Steven Seagal's aikido strikes and joint locks. Something should have been mentioned about how unusual it is for a six and a half foot tall cop to be karate kicking crooks all over town. But as I mentioned earlier, the story is the real problem.

Terry (the same name he had in The Karate Kid Part III) is involved in an action scene in the beginning before we even know a thing about him. And we never really do learn who he is. He plays the piano, he dresses stylishly, and he's a cop. We don't really know much else. Griffith's height was a bit of a problem for him being a leading man. He towers over everyone else. He really does seem better suited for the role of the villain. The supporting cast really help this film and it's worth watching for Lance Hendrickson, Tony Todd, and James Earl Jones. I should also mention Burt Young who made a good mobster, but is sadly not in the movie enough. That also hurt the movie, that as the layers of the plot unfold, the bad guys keep changing.

If you like violent rated R action movies I think you will like this one. It's just a missed opportunity more than anything. If they wanted Griffith to play a cop then they should have cut back on the taekwondo, maybe had him take out the dangling earring, and not make him so chic looking. He would have been better off with the slicked back Seagal style haircut he had in The Karate Kid Part III rather than the feathered styled look he had here. He just doesn't look tough. He looks like a model.

Thomas Ian Griffith (who was introduced to film audiences as the slimy Terry Silver in The Karate Kid part III) wrote, produced and stars in this action flick about Terry McCann, a Chicago cop with a short fuse (and one hell of a kick) who becomes engulfed in an inside plot to steal $3 million in mob money from a crime scene. They don't like that. He now has to unravel the plot before it gets him killed and those he loves around him.

I really enjoyed Excessive Force (1993). Griffith is a very likable and watchable action hero. The plot isn't the most original thing going for it but it moves fast and has good energy. An interesting cast was assembled for the film which included genre fave Lance Henrikson, Vader's voice James Earl Jones, Candyman himself Tony Todd, Rocky's brother-in-law Burt Young and the exotic Charlotte Lewis. The cast I think is what saved it from becoming standard action fare.