La loi de la jungle

Jeff Wincott, who was making martial arts flicks at the same time as Jeff Speakman, plays a long-haired lawyer who loses everything -- not entirely his fault, it seems -- and is forced to fight in a series of illegal matches. That part of the plot you've seen before, but the rest of this action flick is a tad unusual. I won't say more about the plot, but I will tell you that the film has some exciting fights, and the ending ties neatly in with the rather odd opening. Wincott is pretty convincing as an ass-kicking lawyer. He is the brother of Michael Wincott, by the way. Worth a look for fans of both action and kung fu type flicks.

As the credits for "Law Of The Jungle" started to display, my expectations sank greatly. First, the credits identified the producer of the movie as Ashok Amritraj, a producer who has produced an unbelievable amount of shoddy schlock. Then the director credit came up, identifying the director as Damian Lee, who has directed a lot of really bad movies. But the credits also revealed that star Jeff Wincott was one of the producers. Maybe, I thought, he would bring to this movie what he had learned in his American movies. (This movie is Canadian)

It didn't take very long to realize that this was turning up to be a very bad movie. In fairness to Wincott and Lee, they were working with a really terrible script. (Oh, wait - no fairness to Lee, since I just remembered that he wrote the script for this movie.) It takes about half an hour for the movie to develop something of a plot, and it's very slow-going afterwards. The movie is stuffed with talk talk talk - and not interesting talk.

What about the fight sequences? Well, I'm pretty sure martial arts fans will be greatly disappointed. Lee screws up these scenes like he does with the other parts of the movies. He does make Wincott get hit with a lot more blows than you usually expect the protagonist to get in a movie like this, but other than that interesting aspect, the fights are horribly done. Lee incompetently uses techniques like slow motion, bad camera angles, and very one-sided fights for the most part.

A message for Wincott: Make regular trips to your barber. The long hair look you have in this movie makes you look ridiculous.

I just caught this film when I was away on holiday and being a martial arts movie fan I thought I'd check it out, but I have to say it was diabolical.

The fight scenes are slow and poorly choreographed, the acting is laughable and the direction is deplorable. They must have pulled these actors off the streets and thrown them in front of the camera.

When you look at what people like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were doing over 20 years earlier it makes you wonder how these people have the face to make such rubbish. It really is THAT bad.

Don't bother spending any money on this film, buy your wife some flowers or something like that, you'll get a better result!

'Street Law' is interesting if you're a fan of Jeff Wincott. It has some cliches typical of dtv fare - underground fight tournament, big bad villain, revenge plot - but it isn't horrible. You do have to buy-in to the fact that a long haired muscled martial artist with fighting experience also doubles as a successful lawyer though.

John Ryan (Wincott) has gone into hock with a loan shark to the tune of 78k on behalf of some of his poor clients. Enter Luis Calderone (Paco Christian Priesto) as his childhood friend who went to prison after an incident involving both of them. He's built himself up to be a formidable gangster who buys out Ryan's debt, bribes key people, implicates him in a murder in a bid to own him. John is told all he has to do is win some underground fights he runs and he'll be free. Of course, all Luis wants is sweet revenge.

What's holding it back is some poor choices. There's a "capture the flag" element here to the fight scenes that adds nothing. Also a dreadful use of slow-mo, camera work that doesn't even capture blows landing. Plus after the build up between main characters (all Luis wants is sweet revenge) the finale is a letdown. Most of the supporting cast don't standout either.

'Street Law' doesn't look horrible, but you've seen the sum of it's parts done better elsewhere. Priesto made for a decent bad guy and fans of Jeff Wincott will find bits to like here, but this isn't the best flick he's done or even a decent dtv trip on it's own. It's also the second team-up Wincott made with director Damian Lee and of course filmed in Toronto.

Of course I had never heard about this 1995 movie titled "Street Law". I happened to stumble upon it by random chance here in 2024, and opted to sit down and watch it, on account of it being a movie that I knew nothing about.

Writer and director Damian Lee put together a rather bland and generic script that was somewhat devoid of anything interesting or extraordinary. And that made sitting through "Street Law" somewhat of a struggle.

The acting performances in "Street Law" were okay. Nothing outstanding or great, mind you, but for a movie such as this, then the acting performances weren't bad. I was only familiar with leading actor Jeff Wincott in this movie.

There were a couple of action scenes that sort of kept the movie afloat. But hardly something memorable. The slow motion fight scenes, however, were just incredibly cringeworthy to sit through.

While I did manage to sit through "Street Law", this was not a movie that made a lasting impression on me. And I bet that come next week, the movie will be gone from my memory. And this is definitely not a movie that will find its way to my screen a second time.

My rating of "Street Law" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.