Badge of Honor

... but only if you are a casting director looking to find a formerly A-list actor who has the chops but has not been getting the roles needed to show off her skills.

The rest of the film is basically a clinic in how to make a sub-B indie product:

1. Pull together some actors who are slightly past their BEST BY date and will work cheap.

2. Lay down the heaviest sound track you can, because everyone knows that deficiencies in the production (direction, lighting, acting, scripting) can be "hidden" if the viewer is distracted by a heavy sound track.

3. Shoot the entire film in as much natural light as you can. If anyone complains, call it "authentic". Others of course might just call it "dark." This saves a lot of money.

4. Speed up all the action scenes just a little, maybe by dropping a few frames here and there. This makes the action look faster and cooler than it actually is.

5. (Optional) If you are the director and writer, give yourself a one-word name -- like Madonna -- so that viewers will remember your work and avoid it in the future

Finally, for the record, Martin Sheen is one of my all time faves but PA-LEEZE to imagine he can still play a professional, active-duty, cop at 75 years of age almost qualifies this film as Science Fiction.

As a low-budget DTV production, "Badge of Honor" is a credible effort. It's not in the same league as "We Own the Night," "Street Kings" or "Serpico;" however, it maintains the audience's attention and interest. Its greatest strength lies in credible performances by the entire cast. It's greatest weakness is undoubtedly the incessant camera movement. I can't remember a single shot that looked as if the camera were locked down. The amount of camera motion, particularly in inappropriate shots, was frequently distracting. It also seemed a little thin on forensics and police procedures. For that matter, a large drug deal in an early scene didn't seem very realistic. The POV was also a little muddled, as at least two characters had memory flashes. Compared to top-notch police procedural films, it ranks somewhere in the middle of the herd, well back from the must-see films. However, compared to DTV productions shot in Eastern Europe starring faded action stars from the 1970s and 1980s, it's a much more rewarding cinematic experience.

Mr Monroe portrays the cop masterfully. Ms Suvari plays the role of rookie IA detective masterfully. Mr Sheen delivers a credible performance as the referee. Who will win this chess match?

I am British, so rarely watch US TV crime series. Maybe for that reason there were some angles in this "dirty cop" drama which were new to me, and kept me watching to the end.

But they were not developed as they could have been, and the screenplay was to blame. The direction, too, is mediocre with the same tired style of flashbacks to patch holes in the exposition that we see in so many direct-to-DVD movies.

I think the intended ironic statement about "truth" and "honor" is indeed there, but gets muffled in the obligatory Hollywood ending.

The heroine and the "redeemed" cop were too lightweight, while Martin Sheen popping up in a supporting role, and still-beautiful Natasha Hensbridge in a dispensable one, only served to undermine the intended grittiness and remind us we are watching a Hollywood movie.

I am posting because I think this movie deserves better than the current 4.7 score. I give it 6, and most of that is for the storyline rather than the way it is realised on screen.

OK for a got-nothing-else-to-do movie. Whomever was in charge of writing stuff in this film needs spelling classes ASAP. Apart from the "Assualt" mistake in the report, the Credits at the end are FULL of errors: The character appears as "Jocob", another one is "Smauel". Then there are three "Sunt Doubles", an "Add'l Firs Assistant B Camera", an "Assitant Costume Designer" and a "Set Cosumers Supervisor". I'm sure there are other goofs I didn't catch, especially among the First and Last Names of people involved in the movie. One positive thing about the movie is FINALLY using people who really do speak Spanish playing the roles of Latinos something Hollywood, completely surrounded by people from Central and South America doesn't usually do. Maybe it was Martin Sheen's influence or that Agustin's ear would hurt from the bad Spanish found in most American movies. Unfortunately, the director wasn't the right person to check the credits or assign that job to whomever did it.