Too much of everything

Perfect cast and a good story

Better Late Then Never

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This routine action thriller never breaks the boundaries - instead happy to follow in the footsteps of countless older brothers. Yes, it's the old cop corruption routine again, going back all the way to SERPICO in the early '70s. This serviceable flick has some good action bits and some lame "bonding" scenes - just as you would expect, really.One thing the film has in its favour is the cast, with loads of familiar faces in major roles. Thomas Ian Griffith, who you may recognise as the chief vampire Valek in Carpenter's VAMPIRES, is a pretty much wooden action hero. In his favour he's very tall which makes him imposing - check out that vampire film - but his action? Well, it just looks like he's taken up martial arts at college, there is no particular grace in his moves, they're just realistic-looking.Lance Henriksen enjoys himself in a villainous turn, but doesn't come close to the entertaining nastiness he exudes in the same year's HARD TARGET. Also popping up are James Earl "Darth Vader" Jones, in his patented crusty old good guy role, and Tony Todd, who has spent the last two decades acting his way through a million straight-to-video flicks. Burt Young also gets a brief opportunity to chew the scenery.Aside from the action, this is typical stuff, with some gratuitous nudity thrown in for good measure. The action itself is sometimes brutal (although it was trimmed, as I saw this on television), and a refreshing amount of bad guys get taken care of. There are also some explosions and some shooting bits to keep things moving along. Okay, so EXCESSIVE FORCE is nothing special, but it passes the time and could have been a lot worse. Let's just think of something new next time, guys...

This is an AWESOME and underrated martial arts flick. The action is fast-paced, the plot is intriguing, and Thomas Ian Griffith shows off some impressive martial arts talent. The film has everything you want. From classic one-liners to over the top shoot-outs! If you are a fan of Van Damme or Seagal movies, you better check it out. Thomas Ian Griffith could of had a great career, too bad he never got another chance. The film also has an amazing supporting cast and direction and editing are perfect. A rare gem! I've seen the film over a dozen times and it never gets old...highly recommended. One of the last good 90's action kick 'em ups.

Terry McCain and his team of Chicago police officers bust up part of mob boss Sal DiMarco's operations. The trial falls through due to the use of excessive force, but $3000000 from the bust goes missing. When DiMarco kills both McCain's partners in an attempt to get the money back, McCain goes after him but decides to spare his life. The next day DiMarco is found dead and McCain realises that there are crooked people around him who are using him to do their dirty work and that they'll soon need to kill him to tidy it all up.Seeing the cast list in my TV guide I assumed that this would be a classy little thriller so I decided to give it a go. When the opening credits made it look more like any one of a million `straight to video' martial arts films I realised that I had been duped a bit, but decided to give it a go anyway. The plot (written by Griffith himself) is basically the normal one for this type of thing – cop is framed and must fight an army to clear himself and take down the bad guy. It is delivered in quite a good way so it never feels as lame as it is if you actually think about it later. The `twists' are expected – or at least you know there will be twists as there always is in this type of thing.For an action film I must admit that I found the action scenes to be quite workmanlike and even dull at times. It is evident that Griffith had been watching the films coming out of Hong Kong at the time and had wanted to try and emulate some of that. This can be seen in the two handed gun play he does as well as the scenes in the jazz bar (both of which show that he had seen John Woo's Hard Boiled at least). Sadly without the same style he never gets close and most of his fights are good but far from anything impressive or spectacular. Despite these influences the film still falls into the old clichés, so we have a few scenes of T&A (both actually quite nice – Lewis is better looking that she appears and Cruzat only input is to wear very small underwear and walk across a room - yummy!)Griffith actually struggles to carry the film and I didn't feel that he had the screen presence he needed to do it. At the start of the film I didn't think he had the looks of a leading man and looked more like a support bad guy – nothing in the film changed this view, although he did do quite well with some of the more `emotional scenes'. Happily the support cast is full of familiar faces, although why they all signed up for this is beyond me! The famous support is split into two camps – those that make the film better and those who seem to be slumming it. James Earl Jones and Burt Young are definitely among the `slummers' and seem confused as to how they signed up for this. In the other camp Henriksen raises every scene and is better than his stereotypical role should have been, while Todd (Candyman) is lively and enjoyable. Charlotte Lewis used to be in Grange Hill as a youth but her English accent doesn't get in the way – and the T&A clause in her contract shows her to have grown up nicely! Sadly she has little to do but be naked or be saved by McCain!Overall this is not an awful film but it is a very ordinary one. If you have a choice between a blockbuster and this then I'd be tempted to pass on this but, out of a like for like choice this is actually pretty much par for the course. Not great in any sense of the word but just about has enough going for it to justify watching it if there's nothing else on TV.

Thomas Ian Griffith, the long legged martial artist who also is a creditable actor, here has worked to his discredit by performing as both screenwriter and producer of this turkey. The plot is grimly but forgivably obvious but what is worse is that an entire supporting cast of worthies, from James Earl Jones to Lance Henriksen, is misused in this painfully scribed compendium of plot cliches and high kicks. Don't waste your time on this one.