Shakedown (1988)

Sick Product of a Sick System

Fresh and Exciting

A Disappointing Continuation

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I don't think I'd seen this film since it originally came out in the theater. I remember thinking it was pretty ridiculous then, but it's aged better than I'd expected, mainly thanks to it's cast, the use of actual NYC locations, and 80s action film nostalgia value. Peter Weller plays a groovy lawyer and Sam Elliott plays a renegade narcotics detective. It's a cliche ridden story of Weller and Elliott then face off against drug dealers, corrupt police officers, and other assorted low-lifes. The script by writer/director James Glickenhaus is pretty awful, but his action sequences are serviceable. In the film's favor is the fun pairing of Elliott and Weller and also the use of grimy pre-Giuliani NYC locations, including one action sequence filmed at 42nd Street in Times Square when it was still a den of go-go bars, peep shows, and adult theaters. It was certainly a good thing that Giuliani cleaned up the streets of NYC, but when it comes to movies filmed in The Big Apple, I have a fond affection for films like "The Warriors", "Maniac", "Gloria", "C.H.U.D.", "Black Caesar", "Across 110th Street", "Combat Shock", or even Glickenhaus' own "The Exterminator" which all prominently featured the seedy side of the city that never sleeps. Also in the film's favor is that it featured more mullets than any recent action film I can think of outside of "Roadhouse". Overall, "Shakedown" is a highly routine buddy cop picture to the degree of being a genre stereotype, but it has enough positives to be enjoyed by fans of these sorts of films.

It starts off with an interesting if already familiar problem: How do we dig out corruption in the NYPD when there is so much crack money floating around? In "Serpico" a Brooklyn narc hijacks the hero off the street and threatens him, saying, "This is serious money." That's the milieu we find ourselves in here.Peter Weller is a nobody Legal Aid lawyer trying to get his drug-dealing client off because the suspect actually killed in self defense. An undercover cop tried to rip off his drugs and cash in Central Park, shooting him in the process. The opposing prosecutor is Weller's ex-lover, Patricia Charbonneau. Weller enlists the aid of an undercover friend of his, Sam Elliot, in trying to uncover the truth.The questions addressed are important, and the script sounds literate for the first half hour. Someone went to the trouble of ferreting out apt quotes about justice from the New Testament. But after that it goes downhill fast. It's as if somebody had handed in a decent and thoughtful script about the characters, then another party had taken the script and doctored it, putting in a quote from Dirty Harry (twice), a shootout in what looks like Times Square, a funny car chase through the streets of New York (twice), wisecracks in times of mortal danger ("You drive, I'll shoot."), and finally a rip off of a physically impossible feat from Schwarzenegger's "Commando." Too bad. Charbonneau and Weller are well matched, each with prominent bony facial features. Charbonneau sounds like Sondra Locke if you close your eyes. Sam Elliot is reliable too, and he demonstrates his range here. At one end, he can lower his face then cock it over his shoulder at someone and offer sage advice with a smirk and a baritone. At the other end, he can chuckle. Peter Weller I've always liked, though he shows his limitations as an actor here. Whatever prompted him to pursue a Master's degree in, what?, Ancient Civilizations? And then look for positions as Adjunct Professor at places like Franklin and Marshall and Syracuse University? (I've got it. He needed the money a part-time teacher makes!) Whatever his motives, I admire him for his intellectual curiosity. Weller's character is no invincible superhero either. When somebody holds a gun to his head he's scared to death and tells them what they want to know.Notwithstanding all that, this isn't a movie designed to appeal to grown ups. There's no point in listing the plot loopholes or loose ends. The evil people are plain evil. The good people are plain good. There's none of the ambiguity of real life. One can only wonder what a yeoman director like Don Seagal or Sidney Lumet might have done with material like this.

Behold! Another movie about crooked New York cops and the two unorthodox cop and lawyer that gives them the shakedown. The story was alright, but the action scenes were tremendous. In fact, they were too good for a movie that had a very solemn thriller aspect in addition to having trouble picking up the pace at points. Things will go slow and then bam! Some wild action scene occurs. This also makes the ending, ala True Lies, far too ridiculous to really enjoy. Perhaps, if the story was all about Sam Elliots character, the quiet and rugged cop who doesn't ask too many questions, it would seem fitting as an explosive cop shootout kind of movie. But the film is transplanted into the courtroom with subtlies of Peter Weller's character, a lawyer, who is defending the drug dealer accused of killing a cop who is part of a whole line of New York's finest shmoozing the city's notorious drug dealers. This movie wasn't too bad, and probably enjoyable for those who like cheap, 80s cop thriller movies without too much regard to writing. If they'd have kept up with the action scenes, it'd made a fine action/suspense film. And, without all the action, it'd made a fine thriller. It just changes tempo too often is all.

I enjoyed the movie. Good entertainment. Especially enjoyed the live action stunts in a movieworld obsessed with sickening unrealistic comp-gen action scenes. If I want to watch animated action I turn on the Bugs&Daffy Show. Anyhow, my favorite part is the "DSAF" lecture. Seems there's alot of dsaf candidates wandering around out there these days...