Mario Van Peebles plays Max Dire, a cop going through some rough times. He's seen some weird and supposedly tragic things happen to his partner Jim (Tony Denison), and of course his marriage is on the rocks as well. Then a fellow cop named Garou (Bruce Payne) who heads a "special squad" goes about trying to induct Max into his team. They're supposedly dedicated to wiping out crime, but in truth they're not much better than the bad guys on the streets.
If you get a kick out of genre crossovers, this action-cop-melodrama-horror flick may provide you with enough amusement. Overall, it's pretty standard - the writing, the acting, the effects, etc. Still, its central hook is enough of a hoot to reel in the viewer, and the filmmakers try to draw parallels between the actions of the special squad and drug addiction (these guys and gals regularly inject themselves with something that gives them superhuman abilities). But at least it gives a little fresh life to the ultra-predictable "dead partner" trope.
Van Peebles has some good chemistry with the smouldering Patsy Kensit, as a member of Paynes' team. He himself does an okay job, but it's Payne, an actor who's typically specialized in villain roles, who dominates much of the film. It IS fun to see him and Kensit play Americans; for the most part, they are able to suppress their natural accents. And there's a steady stream of familiar faces in the supporting cast: Jason Beghe ("Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear"), Paula Marshall ("Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth"), Dean Norris ('Breaking Bad'), Willie C. Carpenter ("Hard Target"), Victoria Rowell ('The Young and the Restless'), Scott Paulin ("Teen Wolf"), and Mel Winkler ("Devil in a Blue Dress").
This is preposterous stuff, but it's slickly made (genre veteran Anthony Hickox ("Waxwork" and its sequel, etc.) is the director), and reasonably paced, wrapping up in a fairly trim 98 minutes, and it includes enough sex and violence to hold the attention of its audience.
Six out of 10.
