Forza bruta

This is your usual cheap cop flick of the eighties, what makes this unusual is it's made before 84 when video retailers really kicked off here in the UK. Starring the amazingly named Wings Hauser it centres on a disgraced cop coming back home when he hears his friends daughter has been murdered by a serial killer. Being back home Stoney Cooper (Hauser), has to confront a hateful former police colleague and his estranged wife. There are decent pieces of this film especially when Hauser and his wife Eddie (Joyce Ingalls) are involved. But eventually it's a dadt thriller when it should've been better.

Stoney Cooper (Hauser) is a private for-hire freelance inforcer that works in New York City, until he's hired back to his old stomping ground Los Angeles, to track down a serial killer. Dependable B-movie star Wings Hauser is fun in his lead "Dirty Harry" style role as a specialist at tracking down & capturing criminals. He's abit like a bounty hunter, but was once an LA cop until he lost his badge for his rogue ways & bad attitude. Hauser is fine as our lead, pure 80's, cop that reminded me of a dodgy version of David Hasselhoff in Knight Rider. In many ways Hauer's renegade, loose cannon & wild, risk taking cop was Martin Riggs before Lethal Weapon. There's similarities between Stoney Cooper & Martin Riggs, & it's not just the hair lol.

Wings is definitely B-movie royalty, with a huge filmography that's full of low-budget B-movie gems. Some of his i love are Nightmare at Noon, Mutant & Vice Squad, just to name a few. Wings is watchable because he's like an ordinary bloke, a blue collar guy with an attitude & he makes it fun. I really like Wings in films & often watch something because he's in it. Deadly Force is one of the best Wings Hauser films because he gets his own leading Cop Movie & he's having a ball with it.

Deadly Force is made by Paul Aaron who also made the early Chuck Norris action Classic A FORCE OF ONE.

I just love the 80's cop genre, especially the 80's buddy-cop genre, & consider it my favourite movie genre & my go-to comfort genre. I can loose myself in the movie world of 80's cop films, there's just such an energy to those old school films that i love. The 80's music, cheesy or not i love it all, the gritty backdrop to those films & the often bloody shootout action that follows. I love cop films & Deadly Force is a decent, fun one from that beautiful decade.

Deadly Force is filmed fine, the opening sequence in a beautiful sunny morning in Los Angeles is gorgeous Cinematography & then the more grittier look for New York, all shot well with fine 80's music to compliment the scenes. I totally dig the 80's music & neon lights & it's often, dark Death Wish 2 style tone. Los Angeles was a dangerous place in 1983, & Deadly Force embraced that fear. The serial killer in this is extremely deadly because he kills at random, each victim is different so there's no pattern. I really did like the look of the film the whole way through. At times Deadly Force felt very 70's, very early 70's cop thriller feel & then it would change to very 80's lively action cop flick. All in all i think Deadly Force is a fun & entertaining action cop thriller or, crime thriller. Routine at times yes, but 80's cop films all felt similar at times as they all kinda copied a formula, but i love it all.

There's other actors that support Wings Hauser of course, recognisable faces, but this is his leading movie & he made a fun cop character that should've atleast had one sequel.

A fun little bit-part for Estelle Getty from The Golders Girls, she's fun as a taxi driver.

Anyway tough & mouthy Stoney in let loose on the streets of Los Angeles, with gangsters & cops on his trail he doesnt stop until he finds his man.

There's nothing particularly special about Deadly Force, or anything that makes it really stand out from the cop thriller genre, but it's a fun film if you like the genre or if your a fan of Wings Hauser.

This movie drags terribly. I checked the time and couldn't believe I was only 38 minutes in and that there was over an hour left. Slow moving and thats more down to plot and the lengthy character development of Stoney Cooper. That didn't help.

The plot is good standard fare for an action movie. Ex cop turned private detective returns to LA where formerly served to solve the murder of a friend's daughter. He meets up with old enemies and his ex wife while things dont go as planned. The movie would have worked with a good healthy edit and better action sequences like the last one which didn't make sense. Alot of gloating to prolong it too long.

Might have been alot better with a good edit. Wings Hauser was good in the role. Also nice seeing Al Ruscio not playing the stereotypical bad guy for a change.

Early in the film, there is a great scene where Wings Hauser is confronted by a couple of thugs in a car. They punch him in the gut, put a gun to his head, shove him through the car window and tell him to go back to New York.

Unfortunately he ignores their warning and the film drags on for another hour.

My review was written in July 1983 after a Times Square screening.

Filmed late last year (with an alternate title of "Fierce Encounter", "Deadly Force" is a nondescript imitation of "Dirty Harry" mad by the team responsible for "Vice Squad". Unappealing lead players and a ho-hum script make for a desultory action picture, due for a short life in hit-and-run saturation release.

Episodic format introduces devil-may-care gun-for-hire Stoney Cooper (Wings Hauser, the maniac from "Vice Squad"), juggling New York and Los Angeles assignments. In latter locale, his trackdown of a mass murderer is obstructed by his ex-associate on the police force, Otto Hoxley (Lincoln Kilpatrick), while Cooper fortuitously makes up with his estranged wife Eddie (Joyce Ingalls), at newshen who is also covering the murder case.

Fitting by default in the B-picture category, "Force" lacks the unusual plotting or colorful gallery of characters which once distinguished this form of filmmaking. Key plot twists, particularly the identity of the power behind the killer, are telegraphed so that the audience is at least two reels ahead of the slow-witted leads. Aimed at the action audience, picture features many minority players but casts them in stereotyped roles, except for Lincoln Kilpatrick as the de rigeur tough policeman, making a strong impression in an otherwise undistinguished front line.

As the oversize, toothy lead, Hauser likewise made an impression as the nut terrorizing Season Hubley in "Vice Squad", but the attempt to convert him into a recurring Eastwood-like (or rather a B-level Robert Ginty-like) hero fails. Manhandling lowlifes throughout the film's poorly-knitted episodes. Hauser plays his new role as if wer still essaying a violent maniac, eliciting no sympathy in the process. While in Don Siegel's "Dirty Harry" the hunt and confrontations with killer Andy Robinson were carefully dominant over the episodes of routine Eastwood business, here the mad killer plot has no impact or urgency and differs from the subplots and fille along the way only in terms of body count.

Supporting Hauser in a stock role originally announced for Cindy Pickett, Joyce Ingalls delivers bored, monotone readings. Laying in a noisy musical score fails to ide the unexciting, "let's wrap this one up" nature of Paul Aaron's direction, which loses all credibility in the final reel when Hauser battles the main villain in comic strip "unkillable" scenes. Tech credits are okay.