Point of Impact

Custom cop Jack David (Michael Paré) and his men are ambushed at the Miami docks. Five of his guys are killed. He punches out his supervisor and is fired after getting all the blame. Sandra Ficher introduces him to Roberto Largo (Michael Ironside) to work as a bodyguard for his wife Eva (Barbara Carrera). Jack suspects his old boss Martin Cullen is corrupt and responsible for the deaths. He discovers a connection between Largo and Cullen.

This is a pretty bad action B-movie. The acting, the directions and the overall style are all clunky lower level stuff. Everything screams B-movie. The stage fighting is 70s kung fu. The dialog and acting is stiff. Some of the characters are way too ridiculous. Michael Paré is pass his best before date. They throw in some nudity and some explosions to complete the B-movie checklist.

This film begins with a raid at a loading dock by U.S. Customs agents which goes bad and ends up with the deaths of several agents. Immediately afterward "Jack Davis" (Michael Pare) is blamed for the botched assignment and subsequently fired from his job. Now unemployed he receives a job offer from a wealthy businessman by the name of "Roberto Largo" (Michael Ironside) which looks extremely suspicious to him. At first he is told that he is being hired to protect his wife "Eva Largo" (Barbara Carrera) from Cuban agents. However, he soon discovers that his former boss at the U.S. Customs Department, "Martin Cullen" (Ian Yule) has been involved in illegal activity with Roberto and it's then that he decides to bring both of these men down-and he needs the help of Eva to do just that. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this had all of the ingredients necessary for a good crime-action movie. Unfortunately, although there were several erotic scenes involving Jack and Eva, the chemistry just didn't seem to be there. Likewise, some of the action scenes weren't as convincing as they should have been either. In any case, while I don't consider this to be a bad film necessarily, it clearly didn't meet its potential and I have rated it accordingly.

Surprisingly entertaining B crime pic, possibly direct to video or maybe was in the theaters for a hot second, but I can't quite find that info. Pare, who's career started with a bang between Eddie & the Cruisers and Streets of Fire, ended up making close to 200(!) under the radar movies like this over the next couple decades, and unfortunately he's the worst part of the film. Stiff acting with every scene met by the same facial expression and vocal tone, and his character's idea of "investigation" is to bust straight in everywhere and demand answers. Not exactly Columbo.

But on the other side we have the always quality Michael Ironside as a clearly-up-to-no-good importer/exporter with an ocean front compound the size of a small theme park, and ex-Bond girl Barbara Carrera as the exotic hothouse flower wife of Ironside's, who spends about half the movie in some state of undress.

Set in Miami, the film leans into it with all manner of sports cars, skinny dipping, plots revolving around Cuba and Cubans, shootouts and fist fights, sex, sex, and more sex, and a bit of pastel-colored clothing and neon lights leftover from the previous decade. Perfectly entertaining B-level cheese.

I bought this one on DVD (titled "Spanish Rose") for only 25 Norwegian Kroner (about 3 U.S. dollars and 50 cent), and normally that doesn't mean quality. It didn't mean that for this movie either. The story in the movie is OK, but no more than that. It's a typical 'single cop fighting against both his superiors and the enemy'-movie, because no one believes what really happened when one of his colleagues died. Sound familiar? The movie was announced as an action-movie, but personally I would say it's more of an action-thriller. There are not that many action scenes in the movie, and they aren't that entertaining either. There are also a couple of really long love scenes that I think had suited better for a soft porn movie. This is a typical sign that the movie isn't any good. And it isn't.

This movie just fails to engage. It's hard to pinpoint anything wrong with it. Barbara Carrera was oh so beautiful, and Michael Ironside was plenty villainous. Ian Yule's cornpone was a bit irritating. But you just can't find yourself caring about any of the characters or what happens to them. Grade: D-