Cop Target (1990)

Too much of everything

To me, this movie is perfection.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

After having felt a bit ill for the last couple of days,I decided to re- start my movie viewing with a bang!,by watching Umberto Lenzi's last ever Italian Crime film.The plot:Spotting a mugger attempting to steal a woman's handbag,undercover cop Farley Wood decides to go and save the woman.Trying his best to help,the mugger ends up getting away,when the woman (who is really a transvestite) starts to hit Farley.Originally planning to take the transvestite back to the station to be charged,Wood eventually decides to give a "second chance" and frees the transvestite.Reaching the police station,Farley is quickly given orders by the police captain that he is being sent on a secret mission to San Cristobal as a hired body guard for the widow and child of a deceased US delegate who is being honoured for everything he did in helping the country's war on drugs,which ended up costing him his life.Arriving in San Cristolbal,Farley quickly discovers that the country's gangsters are determined to make the late delegate's family pay,for everything that their late husband/father caused them to lose.View on the film:For the screenplay of the film,writer Ralmondo Del Balzo scatter's a number of terrific quirky moments, (such as Wood fighting with a transvestite,to de-bugging phones) which help to give the film a nice pleasant feel,which is able to make up for a number of flaws in the directing that sadly ruin the movie.With having become a big fan of Lenzi's energetic,scatter-shot directing style,I was extremely sad to see,that for his final Italian Crime film,all of the energy which Lenzi used to display,sadly seems to have completely burnt out.Despite Balzo's screenplay offering some wild quirky moments,Lenzi disappointingly shoots all of the film in a very plodding,stuck in cement style,which causes the movie to go out on a dying whimper,instead of the explosive bang that it so deserved.

I watched this, and I couldn't escape the bad bad ff key sometimes. Slow introduction, bad motivation, characters changing without any explanation, Ginty looking suspicious, a cat-feeding machine is featured, Napier is wasted, Franco Fantasia - good to see he's well and alive saves a point - what is this about? An action film without action, a suspense movie without a clue. A mess.

This film is actually quite good. Robert Ginty stars as a cop who is hired to escort a rich woman and her kid to an awards ceremony on the tropical island of San Cristobal (this film was actually shot in Miami and Santo Domingo). While there, her daughter is kidnapped by a group of seedy South American thugs, and is held for ransom. Ginty begins to get official "orders" to leave the case to the FBI, but he decides to do his own investigating. He finds that the crime may have had political motivations. This film reminds me of something you'd see on late-night TV. Although it in no way compares to Lenzi's earlier works, it stands up well, and is quite enjoyable to watch.

Robert "The Exterminator" Ginty! Directed by Umberto Lenzi! This can't go wrong! It was booooring! Slow, poorly paced action film has Ginty as a tough cop escorting a widow of a DEA agent who goes to a small country to see her dead husband who was killed in the line of duty. Ginty, who's films I always liked, is trying to work on very badly written script. Charles Napier is also wasted. Good location, but bad sound doesn't help. Hardly any violence coming from Lenzi who usually make gory films. Not recommended.