After watching Jon Hess' sleazy martial arts cop flick Excessive Force for the umpteenth time, I began to wonder why, exactly, Thomas Ian Griffith never caught on as the next big Hollywood action icon. He's certainly good looking, he's got a great head of hair, and his long legs can kick a man square in the face from three states away. On top of that, the guy can actually act. Nothing fancy, of course, but he's certainly better than those muscle-bound clowns he was hoping to usurp a few years ago. It's always a sad day when the guy with the talent is forced to squander his skills on something like The Sea Wolf.
Excessive Force is probably Griffith's finest hour to date. Though his script is jam-packed with familiar characters and moldy cliches you've seen - and smelled - countless times before in far superior pictures, the film is kept afloat by a plethora of non-stop action sequences sprinkled with the star's impossibly fluid spin kicks. It should have transformed Thomas from your run-of-the-mill co-starring schlep into a big, bright shining star with a sprawling Beverly Hills mansion. Unfortunately, he's probably still most famous for his turn as Terry Silver in that cinematic embarrassment known as Karate Kid III.
Weep for what could have been, dear readers.
The Kenpo karate expert stars as Terry McCain, a tough-as-nails Chicago cop who won't hesitate to shove your face through a few windows if he even thinks you're about to cause some trouble. His questionable tactics land him in hot water once again after charges are dropped against local mob boss Sal DiMarco (Burt Young) due to McCain's heavy reliance on excessive force, hence the title of the flick. Terry is given a stern talking to by his superiors and sent merrily on his way. Ah, to be a fictional cop in the '90s.
We wouldn't have a movie if things didn't get ugly, so it doesn't take long for our hero and his buddies to find themselves on the aforementioned crime lord's bad side. Apparently some crooked cop snatched about three million dollars from a drug deal gone bad, and McCain and his crew are at the top of the suspect list.
DiMarco makes his intentions very clear by brutally murdering Terry's best friend Dylan (Tom Hodges) and dumping his battered corpse in a nearby landfill. Understandably furious, McCain sets out to avenge his partner's death, a decision that will thrust him deep into a sinister world of treachery, corrupt cops, and lots of broken windows.
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