Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

"This is gruesome," says a squeamish cop when uncovering the headless corpse of a wino in a back alley. But to be precise, this 3rd entry in this popular horror series is not that gruesome at all, mostly downplaying the gore in favor of the stunt-filled action sequences.The Maniac Cop himself, Matt Cordell does not have much of a part in the story-line until the final act. Instead the film is mostly focused on around frayed-at-the-edges detective Robert Davi, who is very upset when his protégé young police woman is left brain-dead after a drugstore shootout with a psychopath.There are various peripheral characters who are going to suffer from Cordell's wrath. For instance, there is the greedy medico who jokes about the lady cop on life support, saying she might make a nice rock garden ornament.The final act is full of stunts including the sequence where Cordell is set on fire. The photography is good, characterizations are quirky, dialog witty, and the score pleases the ear.Arresting entertainment. To my mind, the best part of the trilogy.

Wounded following a routine robbery, a female officer is abducted by the Maniac Cop Matt Cordell forcing an officer with previous encounters against him to race to save her before he makes her like him.This here was actually an incredibly enjoyable film. What is really fun and enjoyable in this kind of film is there's a lot of action in this one, starting with the opening as the voodoo ceremony over the casket followed by the resurrection in the cemetery is rather chilling and makes for some good atmosphere to open the film with, and the drug-store shootout here is just as nice. The hospital is good enough as the patients are freed and go on a rampage attempting to take over the whole building and shooting everyone in sight. The gurney scene itself is glorious and really exciting, and the resulting gunfight goes to the Church scene, which is really great and just as much fun. This is just pure action From the voodoo ritual to the gunfight that sets off the fire where the visual of them going up in flames together and him still walking around chasing the others is an impressive visual that is highly creepy and thrilling. Even after, there's a spectacular car chase with a still-flaming victim that has plenty of fun with the flaming angle and allows for some creativity and originality, there's a ton of bullets let loose and it even comes with an explosive conclusion. This is the biggest one of the film, and as the rest of the film is laced with action as well, it gives this one a spectacular pace to it that never feels boring or slow. This also comes with the same features as before, with the creepy killer, fun sense of style and a great overall flair here that makes it so much fun while keeping it firmly rooted in the series' lore. Although nearly all are gunshot, there's an impressive body count with a lot of deaths to this as well, and are the film's good parts. This one here did have a few flaws, that there's a really lame murder weapon in a slasher is a really noticeable one. It's really hard to be afraid of a slasher when ninety-percent of the time is using a handgun which really takes a lot out of the film and really ruins the feel of the film tremendously. The other part to it that doesn't work is the really big part wrong about the mishandling of two key areas. The cameramen's adventures around the city looking for news is quite dull and boring, though the intent to have them around is important as they set up the media crucifixion angle, which is the biggest one. It has a great start, but is then dropped and nothing significant is done with it. It's a failed potential, and there's something big it could've done here but instead comes off as a useless tangent. Otherwise, this one here was quite a fun entry.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Compared to the first two movies, this one is certainly a bit of a disappointment. It's not as fun and also not as action packed as any of the two previous movies. Perhaps the fact that director William Lustig walked off the set, for some reason, is the reason for this.You can tell that this movie had some really good ideas in it but it just doesn't work out quite well enough all.It sounds strange but even Cordell just comes across as a totally pointless character in this movie, even though he is the titular maniac cop of the movie. Seems like the movie really had a hard time putting its emphasis on the right elements and persons within this movie. It was true that in the previous movie the Robert Davi got pushed to the background too much, even though he was supposed to be the main hero of the movie. This time its perhaps more the other way around, with the movie focusing more on the 'human' characters and not the evil villainous Matt Cordell. it makes everything that he does in this movie come across as just silly and pointless. No, the movie just doesn't work out that very well.But the thing that was perhaps still missing most from this movie was the fact that it just didn't managed to become fun or entertaining to watch. Of course all of the previous Maniac Cop movies are silly ones but at least the know to be fun and don't become ever very serious and instead goes more often over-the-top.Oh well, it at least still has Robert Davi and Jackie Earle Haley in it, who still keep the movie somewhat interesting and fun to watch, avoiding it from becoming a completely unwatchable one.Not hard to see why they decided on leaving the series at 3 movies.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Maniac Cop 3 (1993) ** (out of 4) Third and final film in the series is without question the weakest. A female officer (Gretchen Becker) goes to a hostage situation where she is shot countless times while also shooting the crack head robber (Jackie Earle Haley). The robber, in return, decides to sue the police force, which awakens our maniac cop (Robert Z'Dar) with the help of a voodoo priest. Robert Davi is back as the detective trying to figure everything out. Third third film in the series also has a screenplay written by Larry Cohen but he has very little to offer here. Obviously the main focus of the film are those bad guys who manage to sue and get money but the screenplay does nothing smart with it and in the end everything here is pretty much by the books. The direction by Lustig and performance by Haley, Z'Dar and Davi are the main reasons to watch the film. Not only doesn't the screenplay deliver on the moral lesson but it also lacks in any reasoning for bringing the character back. The voodoo angle doesn't work nor does the relationship between Davi and the nurse. The death scenes, in their uncut form, are pretty weak and one wonders why the movie was originally given a NC-17 rating. In the end, after a couple good entries this series really goes out on a rather bland note. The movie isn't bad but one can't help but feel disappointed that this is all they could come up with to close the series.