The Wharf Rat

Petey is the man on the docks who can get you anything. He can move loads on and off ships for a cut of the action. However his brother Matt is a police officer. When Matt gets put together with a crooked cop, Doc, he not only gets involved with IAD but he also finds himself followed by an investigative reporter. With the suspicious killing of Matt, Petey finds himself drawn into a deadly game with Doc, his brother's partner.

This is actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be. The story is generally quite clever, there are some nice touches, some good twists and several of the characters are well drawn. However many bits of it are clichéd and you just have to overlook this as a consequence of it being a low budget film with not great actors.

Lou Diamond Phillips is not great at all - he's far too laid back and relaxed to be believable in the lead role. Scott Cohen is better as his brother who is skating a thin line between right and wrong. Judge Reinhold is OK as the crooked Doc but again it's hard to separate him from his usual goofy roles. Rita Moreno adds a much needed touch of class in a small role as the boys mothers and is good albeit in a small role (she's probably most recognisable as Sister Maria in Oz).

Overall this is a good thriller, the leads let down a solid story but not totally. The plot doesn't take you anywhere you don't expect it to but it has a few nice twists and has a reasonable ending. Would have benefited from better actors who would have made their characters more believable.

Why have I never heard of this movie before? It was really good! Scott Cohen's performance as a relatively novice police officer who was competitive with and conflicted by his shady businessman brother (Lou Diamond Phillips)was really superb. And Scott looked great with long hair. Rachel Ticotin was perhaps underused here in her role as a journalist. Her character didn't have the breadth and complexity that Rachel is able to play. Rita Moreno was almost invisible as the mother, but she played it super well in the few scenes she did have. Judge Reinhold's performance was a little too overtly psycho than I thought was necessary for his bad cop role: but, at least it was believable he would do the things he did in this film. There were some good laughs, and one shockingly irreverent scene, too. It's most definitely worth a look.