DVD Review: I Come In Peace (aka Dark Angel)

Sometimes you just know from the outset that a film is going to be great. Perhaps it’ll be a schoolgirl sleepover that ends in a mysteriously terrifying way as in Ringu. Or a couple of out of work actors knocking back lighter fluid as in Withnail And I. Maybe even the flowing tears of a Jeff Fahey in Revelation. Or a high speed car journey through the desert, ala Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

I Come In Peace (aka Dark Angel) also falls into this category. Not only does the opening scene feature an unsuspecting man getting blown up by an eight foot tall alien, but the following scene has a criminal stealing a bunch of illegal substances from police HQ then blowing the building up (the blowing up of things and people will be a recurring theme in this movie). Then to top that off, as if any additional ingredients were needed, the very next scene has a slightly miffed Dolph Lundgren sitting in this car drinking coffee. I really couldn’t have envisioned anything superior.

This film, made in 1990, before Lundgren’s The Punisher black hair-dye had washed out, concerns a plot that surely must have been formed in the golden cauldron of cinematic delights back in the dawn of eternity. Lundgren plays Jack Caine, a harsh, rebel cop, who doesn’t play by the rules, but by hell gets the job done. He don’t lay down for no establishment, no authority is gonna order him about; he’s a man of the world, a PhD holder from the school of hard bastard knocks. An unexplained spate of mob murders leads him into the murky world of alien drug-ringing, yes it turns out a large alien looking like Chris Lambert in Mortal Kombat is running around killing mob people and civilians in order to extract some sort of brain mush from their skulls. It’s up to Lundgren to stop the fucker.

Co-starring with Lundgren is the delectable Brian Benben as a whinny fed assigned to make sure Lundgren doesn’t go mad and start taking his testicles out. It’s a good partnership, one which, in the vein of classic team-ups, starts off despondent and hostile, but soon develops into the type of camaraderie that we’d expect from Danny Glover and Mel Gibson (except they’re getting too old for this shit), or Charlie Sheen and Clint Eastwood. And the alien guy’s pretty cool too, strolling around the neighbourhood killing passers-by with rampaging compact discs.

Article Author: Aaron Fleming

Aaron Fleming is a waster and an idler - prone to pomposity - forever enchanted by the filmic and the sonic, words and the aesthetic - given to the most ludicrous appraisal of Culture's finest icons and compositions. He resides in London.

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