Bad Movie Club: Hollywood Cop

1987 action thriller

BM Rating: 5/5 (Mark: 2/5; Russell: 4/5; Josh: 5/5; Kristen: 1/5; Fred: 2/5)

Rating: 4/20

Plot: A "Hollywood" "cop" uses his "amazing" "police" "skills" to go after some "dastardly" kidnappers led by a "Mitchum."

Note: I tried to simplify the rating system, but I'm still not sure people understand how it works.

Oh, Amir Shervan. As soon as I found out that this was helmed by the man behind the gloriously inept Samurai Cop, I was in. No, I didn't think it could live up to that bad movie masterpiece, but another example of this Iranian's take on American 80's action movies has to be worth watching, right? I'm happy to report that although this isn't quite as good-bad as Samurai Cop, mostly because of the performance of Robert Z'Dar, this could easily be considered classic good-bad movie fare.

By the way, you are aware that somebody is making Samurai Cop 3: Deadly Vengeance, right? It's not Shervan since he's deceased. However, both Robert Z'Dar and one Tommy Wiseau are involved, so that's one that needs to be caught on the big screen. If your fucking testicles can handle it!

I love that the opening credits for this have the performers' names in Hollywood Walk of Fame stars. That's clearly presumptuous and more than likely completely insane. This is the second James Mitchum movie we've seen in the last few months for Bad Movie Club, and the guy's becoming a BM favorite. I'm not sure he's actually got a legitimate Hollywood star yet. Turns out that he's just as unlikable playing a bad guy as he was playing a good guy. You wonder how the guy got to be the head of this inept crime syndicate and wonder if it's because of his intimidating flab. And yes, he does get an awkward scene where he engages in something resembling foreplay (Mitchum Play) in his tighty whities. If that's your thing. The most interesting bad guy is a thug named Animal who apparently was influenced by watching Ogre in Revenge of the Nerds and middle school bullies. But here, you can check out his (not spoiler-free) work for yourself:



Brandon Angle plays Stevie, the kid who ends up kidnapped. Bad child acting stands out in quality movies, but to still manage to stand out with this much bad acting around him takes a special kind of talent. He's a living and breathing child, and I guess that's all that Shervan was looking for, but I'd like to imagine that he came as a package deal with either the goat or the dog that were in this movie. The goat and the dog were by far the best performers in this movie. But you assume some farmer said, "Sure, Mr. Iranian big shot director, you can use my goat in your movie. But you have to cast my boy, too! Haw haw haw!" And then there's the Hollywood Cop himself, a guy who gets more nicknames than an action hero of his stature deserves. Turk? Turkey? Turquoise? Turnover? Hollywood Cop? Turkey seems most appropriate in a film like this. He's yet another one of those guys starring in an action movie who has no business starring in an action movie, a recent new bad movie motif favorite of mine.

The best thing about all of this are the action sequences. There are car chases that don't make much sense and shootouts that don't make much sense, and you start to wonder if the whole thing is a parody of 80's action movies but have this warm feeling inside because you know it's not. One action scene starts with an attempted rape and a foot chase complete with a cop secret buddy handshake and ends with a dude in a stocking cap who swings a switchblade like he's in the middle of a stroke, a lopped-off hand, decapitation, and projectile vomiting. If you're paying attention, future action movie directors, that right there is the way it's done. The shootouts really are ridiculous. You have no idea where half of these characters even come from and wonder how many of them die multiple times while wearing different shirts. There's a death scene that almost rivals this one as the worst death scene ever:

But actually, the best thing about this movie might be this forced sentimentality. There's some touching father/son stuff, including some "blood cancer" that feels about as legitimate as Wiseau's future mother-in-law's breast cancer in The Room. It's the sort of stuff that elevates this into great-bad movie territories because you just know that Amir Shervan is trying extra hard. Except when he gets distracted by the opportunity to have one of his characters participate with a pair of barely-clad women in an oil-wrestling match. Then, it doesn't seem like he's trying at all. Regardless, God bless the man. Killing American Style, Gypsy (apparently too obscure), Young Rebels, and of course Samurai Cop should all be future Bad Movie Club events.