Un flic à Chicago

Hillbilly-turned-Chicago cop Patrick Swayze sets out to find his brother Bill Paxton's killer. His other brother Liam Neeson comes to the city to find the killer himself -- hillbilly style! It's hillbillies vs mobsters on the streets (and a cemetery) of Chi-town. I'm sure whoever did the casting on this movie had a brief career. I can buy Swayze and Paxton as hillbillies but Neeson? Also, Ben Stiller as a Sicilian mobster?

Swayze is a citified hillbilly. We know they've civilized him because he pulls his mullet back into a fashionable ponytail. Neeson is not civilized. We know this because he wears a dirty baseball cap at all times, even when he has on a suit. Helen Hunt is Swayze's city wife. She plays the violin, which Swayze's hillbilly kin refer to as the fiddle. Rest assured, this movie never misses a chance to traffic in clichés.

The action is so-so and the performances are about what you would expect. Swayze takes his part very seriously. Adam Baldwin seems to know the score and hams it up appropriately as the villain. There are many quotable lines, which is the mark of a good cheesy action movie. It's not at the top of my list of great '80s actioners but it's worth checking out anyway.