Au dessus de la loi

The following review contains negative opinions about a bad movie. Please note, Billy Dee Williams is exempt from all negative comments because that man radiates so much charm and cool that even in this debacle he shines.

Now on to your scheduled review.

Holy bad acting, Batman! This thing is an absolute, ungodly mess. The performances are awful, the plot is boring and overplayed and the... You know what, I can sum this one up really easy. At multiple times this reminded me of The Room. The awkward jumps from thing to thing, the stunned acting, the effort to make one character just seem really, really cool (and it wasn't Billy Dee). If Tommy Wiseau made a Lethal Weapon knock off, this is what you'd get.

Oh, throw in some really casual police corruption and power tripping for good measure. If not for the incredible charisma of one Mr Williams, this would get a rock bottom score but that man is a treasure so he bumps it up a bit.

The only way I could recommend this is if you've only ever seen Billy Dee as Lando from Start Wars. If that's the case, like it kinda was for me, this is worth watching just to add more of him to your film experience. There is nothing else here worth your time.

Don't get me wrong, this is a horribly by the numbers, worthless and forgetable film, but in my circle of friends it has developed a cult classic status. This is due to a friend giving me repeated copies of it as gifts as a long running joke. This caused me and some other friends to make our own sequel to it, Number 2 With a Bullet, to give to him on his birthday. After showing our film to some more friends we then made another, Number 3 With a Bullet. We even plan to make another in the next month. These are crudely made pieces but are highly entertaining nonetheless (more so than the original it has to be said).

I hope that one day the makers of this poor buddy movie discover the legacy they have created (just as long as they don't sue).

It's been a long time since I've seen it...but I recall the title theme being exceptionally good.

I was a big fan of Valerie Bertinelli, too, so I'd have watched this just for her, probably.

She & Billy Dee (who I'd already seen in "Hit", which is enormously better than this, among others), plus the title music, are really about the only reasons to watch this clear Lethal knockoff. (If you want a much better spin on Lethal, have a look at "Bon Cop, Bad Cop".)

(1987) Number One With A Bullet ACTION COMEDY

After the success of "Lethal Weapon" came this low budget effort which is quite good but cannot level up to the same manner as the first two "Lethal Weapons films in terms of budget anyway. But in my opinion is better than "Lethal Weapon 4" and for it's story line and resonating characters. It has Det. Nick Barzack (Robert Carradine) and Det. Frank Hazeltine (Billy Dee Williams) on a crusade to bring down a drug ring. At the same time Barzack is having problems with his home life as he is still separated with his wife, Tereasa Barzak (Valerie Bertinelli) and his boss of the police department, Capt. Ferris (Peter Graves).

No one will ever say this was a "great film", but it's still got plenty of redeeming qualities that place it far above most of the tripe Hollywierd is pumping out these days. An endless stream of subtle but hilarious one-liners ("Man, I was just on the toilet thinking' about you. Ain't life a bitch?" and "I guess he shoulda froze." "Well, it's not like we didn't tell him."), scene setups that have been copied to death for their comic potential (like the drying-out scene), and the cliché but still fresh presentation of a classic buddy-movie. Even the annoying characters (like Mom) are somehow entertaining in their own way. It doesn't surprise me that this title is conspicuously absent from rental shelves, but I, for one, will be glad when it's finally available on DVD.

PS I still find myself quoting this movie at least once a week: "No, thanks. I'm on a low-mucous diet." :-D