S.Q.U.A.D. police de l'ombre

My review was written in May 1990 after watching the film on Magnum video cassette.

The Dark Bros.' second mainstream effort after "Dead Man Walking" is a well-made but poor-taste sci-fi thriller starring Wings Hauser.

Producer Gernert and director Brown retain an element of sleaze from their "New Wave Hookers" days in this slightly futuristic tale of a police force gone mad.

Watergate alumnus G. Gordon Liddy plays a former police chief who's running for mayor on an extreme law and order platform.

Alex Cord is the new police chief who inveigles detective Wings Hauser to join up. When Hauer displays out-of-control behavior, pic delivers the sci-fi revelation that a control device in his back has unfettered violent impulses. It takes Playboy model Roberta Vasquez to get Hauser out of this mess.

In the unrated version (as a shorter R-rated cut also exists), sex scenes not involving the principals add little to the pic. Acting is overwrought, notably Cord's hammy bad guy and Sy Richardson's stereotyped soul brother. Vasquz surprisingly has no nude scenes but proves to be a convincing action performer.

I remember seeing the cover for Street Asylum many years ago and thinking that it looked like another crappy straight to video movie. Then I looked at the cover again and noticed G. Gordan Liddy's face being turned into a robot and thinking that this could be interesting. Well, after sitting down and watching this movie with a few friends, G. Gordan never turns into a robot, but, we did discover how much fun this silly film truly was.

Wings Hauser plays a cop who has been shot in the line of duty. When he wakes up he is already been taken care of and discovers he has been transfered to a very tough division called SQUAD (created by G. Gordan Liddy). The first thing he notices with SQUAD is that all of the men are a bunch of crazed animals who just want to destroy street scum. After a few weeks of being on SQUAD, Wings discovers himself acting more and more like the rest of them and his life begins to spiral out of control.

First of all, if you are into the 80's you will probably get a kick out of this movie as it looks like it was made in 1985 but was released in 1990. The music is nothing but saxophone and actually gets annoying from time to time. But I can overlook that since the subject matter is hilarious.

The acting in the movie is actually quite good and Wings Hauser as the lead man is very convincing. Now, G. Gordan Liddy's role in the movie is one of the most hilarious of all time. Not because of the subject matter, but because this is G. Gordan Liddy. He plays the creator of SQUAD and a sadomasochist which leads to one particularly hilarious scene in which he is being whipped by a dominatrix! Look also for Brion James as a crazed street preacher. It is a small role, but, still great.

Overall, I am not quite sure why this movie has such a low rating on IMDb. This was a fun, enjoyable movie in which you don't have to put a lot of thought into. Fans of the 80's should like this one. 7/10

"Street Asylum" has G. Gordon Liddy dropping pants for a whipping delivered by a dominatrix, Brion James is a maniacal street preacher, and Wings Hauser is in full intense mode, yet the film fails miserably. The story of a special police "Strike Squad", made up of violent cops, controlled by an electronic implant, could have worked, but there are too many problems with "Street Asylum". Character development is nil, Liddy and James pop up once in awhile in scenes that seem totally improvised, and almost every night scene is so dark, you will wonder what is going on. Instead of watching, you could create a game, counting the number of times the word scum is used. Sure it's bizarre, but unfortunately it's also bad. - MERK

She is long in the tooth these days, but in Street Asylum, she is dressed like a hot dominatrix under a trench coat when she visits E. Gordon Liddy's office and proceeds to punish this bad boy of Watergate breakin fame. I am at odds why Liddy even accepted this role to be dominated by a mere woman when his life is punctuated with prison daliances and scary stuff that would make any normal man cring with fear. But there he is, ordered to drop trou, by the very beautiful, Hispanic Vasquez of Playboy and Victoria's Secret fame and gets a bona fide ass whipping which sends him into convulsions of ecstacy and sensual pleasure. I guess because it IS G. Gordon Liddy this all makes sense. Sort of. s/a