Horas Violentas

In Rebel Without A Cause, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet and River's Edge, Dennis Hopper took us to the edge, this time he pushes us over! This man is an amazing actor who brings his trademark intensity to this film. He makes Dirty Harry look like a wimp! This film is a high wire through hell from start to finish and Hopper's performance is what does it. Anne Archer gives a great performance as his long suffering wife and the two have amazing chemistry. One thing that you have to say about Dennis Hopper, he is never boring and always delivers!

Nails is one of those good b film's, you pass in the video shop, and not give it a fair hearing. At the advice of my half brother, I decided to rent this very good actioner, made by a director, whose films I really like, Rolling Thunder being a favorite of mine. In this wild cop tale, kick arse cop, Hopper, who like Devane, or more so Seagal, is on a trail of hot revenge. In a double hit, half gone right, thanks to Hopper's survival, where him and his late partner (Earl Billings- One False Move) are set up, a maddened Hopper vows revenge, against his slain partner, and it's his character which is beautifully and excitingly delivered, that makes this film fun. By the way he acts, it's hard to believe that he actually is a cop. Harry Niles, (Hopper) is a loose cannon, but you love em' none the less. His older veteran partner/best friend (Milan) is a Mexican food lover, like me, where I got hungry watching him eat all the type. Some actors who show up in the film, you aren't surprised to see, or to see why they were cast. Political ties are brought into the story too, bigger bad asses, higher up. Though Cliff De Young, a corrupt campaigner, didn't really do anything for me here, his idol, Keith David an ex con who's now being elected mayor was much more effective, his nasty angrily smiling, sitting profile, a haunting shot etched in my mind. where especially, in a film like this, you wouldn't expect an open ending, where there's a lot more unfinished business between Hopper and him. Hopper's wife's (Archer) life is made very difficult, as unfortunately she works (you guessed it?) for De Young and cronies. With a cool upbeat soundtrack in the end credits, Nail's is not a badly formulated movie, although it's not without faults. It's kind of smart in bits too, the ambush in the opening, for starters, but congrats really go to Hopper, for forming just a exciting, entertaining, laughable and likable character, not the first movie, where he's acted like a kid, the revenge potboiler Boiling Point, was another one that sprung to mind. His partner, Milan is another asset. Watch for a younger John Hawkes, in a small but memorably great role, as antique thief, where Hopper busts up the joint, declaring, how he loves animals to people. It'd be great in reality, if they're were more Harry Nile's in the world. Things would get done more properly.

A contract is put out on hard-boiled police homicide detective Harry 'Nails' Niles (Dennis Hopper) and his partner Jack Willis. Nails survives an ambush but Willis is killed. With vengeance on his mind, Nails searches the L.A. underworld to find Willis' murderers. In between, he has sexual escapades with his ex Mary (Anne Archer).

John Flynn is a B-level crime action director. Nails is a standard hard-boiled detective. He's hard drinking, hard driving, and hard fighting. While Hopper is great at the hard drinking and living, he's not as real in the hard fighting. He's in his 50's but the hard living adds at least another 10 years. There are things that he does well and others that fit less well. There is the prerequisite body double nudity for Archer and also there is old man butt from Hopper. The plot has nothing out of the ordinary. It is somewhat divided in two which feels disconnected. The dialogue can be clunky in its noir writing. This is crime noir at its hard-boiled basic level. I really wish the cinematography is better.

This is a low-class film with low-class, profane characters. Many times that spells death to whether I like the film but in this case, not so. That's because Dennis Hopper (perfect for profane, sick roles) is entertaining and the story moves at a brisk pace. There simply are not any dry spots. I always like to look at Anne Archer, too.

However, you can overdo the swearing, and that's the case here, and the usual modern-day clichés are here (i.e. the police captain fires the cop, who is the hero; Rambo-type action in which the good guys never get hit while the bad guys always do, etc.)

Those things downgrade this film to an average crime movie, which means it's still worth a look - especially if you like Hopper - but rent it before buying it.

Nails is one of those movies that since it's made for TV, then no one can see how bad two big stars can be. Dennis Hopper and Anne Archer should have known better. Hopper was in a pre-Speed slump and had I seen this stinker first, then I would've never seen Speed (What a mistake that would've been). I was suprised at the level of violence and language used in this movie. Never would I have believed that it could've made it to TV like this.

+ (GOOD THINGS) 1.) The car chases 2.) The opening credits

• (BAD THINGS) 1.) The sets (ugh!) 2.) Hopper's performance 3.) The script 4.) The direction 5.) Archer's performance

Total: 2/10