Third World Cop

The story is simple enough. Cop comes back to his old 'hood but this time its in Kingston, Jamaica. That means dancehall, reggae and a great performance by Paul Campbell who was also in Dancehall Queen. Very entertaining and worth watching because of Campbell's acting. He moves the film along and is a presence on the screen. The "Dancehall Queen" Audrey Reid plays the love interest. The acting is good all the way around. The scenes were shot in the area of Dungle.

It's a unique movie. Two best friends find themselves on opposites sides of the law. The basic story and structure is great, where it falters is the dialogue. It isn't that I couldn't understand it. It just had such awful lines like, "I'm sending you home guilty as charged" or "Not Nice, pay the price." The crew filmed this movie in Digital Video to save on the budget but that doesn't ever take away from the movie. A worthy rental or addition to your library.

While it was fascinating to watch a Jamaican movie for the first time, I must say that there's a lot that could've been better in Third World Cop. Most importantly the acting. While Paul Campbell does a fairly good job, virtually all the rest of the cast is quite amateurish, and I'm not just saying that because I lost about 1/4 of the dialogue because of the Jamaican English... Also, the camera and post-production work is below Hollywood/Western standards. The small budget (or at least I assume this movie has a small budget) and apparent inexperience of much of the behind-camera crew unfortunately shines through quite often. The script is not bad, but we've seen this before. We haven't seen this in a Jamaican setting before, however, which is perhaps the movie's greatest selling point.

To sum up this is not too great a movie per se and you sometimes get the feeling that you're watching some cheap action TV show, but the Jamaican setting and all that implies (when was the last time you heard anything like "we run things, things don't run we" in an American movie soundtrack? :o) ) is somewhat refreshing, which is essentially what makes the movie worth watching.

Small town cop in Jamaica returns to Kingston to fight organized crime through his effective but not always nice methods.

Normally I dislike shot on video dramas since they come off as ultra cheap an inept, this film however bucks the trend is a pretty good little crime drama. The action is quite good and has a realistic feel and the performances are there and not the typical sort of posturing one often finds in films of this sort. It all works. Best of all the video production actually adds an immediacy that most movies shot on film don't have. This is one to consider if it hits cable or you see it in blockbuster. Its not the be all and end all but its worth a shot if you're doing a double feature.

Loose cannon cop Capone returns to his home town of Kingston to join a group of officers fighting organised crime in the area. On his first day he uncovers gun smuggling operation that may be connected with lead criminal Oney. However his old crew, led by Ratty, also are involved leading Capone to a choice between his job and his old crew.

This is basically a Jamaican Dirty Harry, with the plot addition of Capone coming up against his old crew. The film sets out the `tough' character in the first scene by having Capone waste some bad guys. After this he is tough for the rest of the film (`we run tings, tings don't run we') and he is a good lead character. The plot is straightforward enough and relies on action and tough talk to get by. The talk is good but the action is a little daft. Lots of diving about with guns and Capone never missing and never getting hit in true A-Team style. That said the story is still enjoyable.

The accents are not to thick to understand. I watched `The harder they come' the day before this, compared to that it was like the Queen's English! However there are some words and phrases that were lost on me still. The production is cheap – the early sets have the look of porn sets and the use of video rather than film also makes it look like a porn movie in terms of feel of the picture (not content!). This is a little distracting because it feels so cheap but if you get into it you can get past it.

Campbell is good and is always watchable here – but his character is a little too tough to be believable. Danvers is not very good – he just looks vexed most of the time and his character isn't developed enough to make the end of the film either impacting or involving. Reid is not pretty enough or given enough material to be a girlfriend character to this man who can have anyone (as established by the opening credits' hump!), but she is passable in the role. Most of the characters fall back on sucking their teeth and saying `bambaclot' (I've spelt it wrong!) – just being stereotypes.

Overall it's worth watching for the novelty value of it and it is quite enjoyable in a rough and ready type way. However if you want a cop thriller then there are plenty better than this.