Crime Killer (1987)

Very well executed

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

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

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This was the first and last movie in which I performed a stunt. I'm the guy doubling "Zeus" in the obstacle course scene where the drill instructor yells "back-flip". I'm the guy who does the back-flip on the balance beam, not a real good back-flip being that I had to wear combat boots at the time. Two years ago I found this movie for sale on the internet so I bought it. The worst movie I've ever seen. Doing stunts in the movie industry was my life's ambition at one time, George Pan-Andreas was very nice guy . There was a motorcycle stunt that did go bad, it was a scene were a motorcycle's front tire was supposed to go through the sunroof of a car and decapitate the driver. The stuntman was alright but the camera operator at bottom of the hill got hit with the motorcycle. A crewman actually quit that day because of it. This was 19 years ago I can't believe I remember any of this.

In the opening scene men jump out of garbage cans and shoot at writer-director-star George Pan-Andreas. His name is Zeus and he is the hero and a cop. Two corrupt cops try to shoot him so he kills them. He is fired from the LAPD. The President goes on TV and explains he's committed to fighting a war on crime. Two criminals take offense at this and decide to get revenge. They kill the President's ex-wife and daughter, who are living in an apartment in L.A. The CIA shows up and forces Zeus to take his job back so he can work for the CIA. That part's a little unclear. He takes the job because he's the crime killer. He kills crime. He dresses up as a gardener and gets beaten by a man who says he hates gardeners. He recruits two friends who were also POWs in Vietnam and they go into the woods behind a factory and train to kill people. They have tinted Nam flashbacks. They bust into a warehouse and kill most of the bad guys. Zeus comes face to face with the main bad guy, a femme fatale and a ninja. He kills them. Then the President stops by his house. He makes the President laugh. He steals the President's watch. The President comes back to get it and sets off a bomb on Zeus's front lawn for fun. The President has a funny laugh. This is not a movie. It is shadows on a wall.

I have a confession to make – I watch way too many bad movies. Most of them end up being exactly that, just plain bad. But, as most bad movie junkies can attest to, you sometimes stumble upon a film that is so bad that it transcends its poor acting, directing and everything else to become entertaining in some tangible way. THE CRIME KILLER, courtesy of writer/director/lead George Pan-Andreas, is one such film. Pan-Andreas, apparently very proud of his Greek heritage, plays Zeus, a cop so super that he gets involved in everything from shootouts with LA street thugs to investigating who killed the President's ex-wife. After all, he is the killer of crime.One of the film's biggest assets is the script. THE CRIME KILLER is filled with some of the most amazing dialogue ramblings I have heard in a long time. Every other line comes from the screenplay cliché book and some seem to go on and on. For instance, check out the subtle interplay between Zeus and the Police Chief as the Chief (predictably) asks Zeus to re-join the squad.Chief: "I need you." Zeus: "How can I come back now? You broke my heart. I have nothing to offer." Chief: "I know."Only enhancing the hilarity is that Pan-Andreas plays all of this totally straight and delivers it with a thick Greek accent that reminds me of my own Greek relatives. Pan-Andreas does have his heart in the right place though and wedges in a fight scene or car chase every ten minutes or so. Sometimes they really feel forced like the scene where Zeus gets into a kung fu fight and tells his defeated foe that, "I need you to do something for me." The audience is never privy to that information and the character is never seen again! There is even a hazardous looking motorcycle stunt that surely sent the daring stunt man (who loses his wig in the process) to the hospital. Pan-Andreas also includes a topless tennis scene (apparently a past time of the wealthy), previously utilized in the early 80s kung fu/Richard Harrison vehicle CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER. Being a film of the mid-80s, the obligatory Vietnam reference is thrown in with some flashbacks (Zeus and his two crime fighting brothers were in 'Nam together). Oddly, these three guys don't feel their war and POW experiences helped them enough in dealing with a mafia syndicate so they spend 10 odd minutes of the film (30 days in the movie world) training with a scrawny looking drill sergeant. And nearly everything he teaches them is useless because the trio end up shooting and stabbing everyone in the final showdown rather than climbing rope bridges. THE CRIME KILLER was released on New World Home Video in 1987. Pan-Andreas actually filmed a sequel showing the further exploits of Zeus almost 20 years later titled GOLDEN TARGET. As of right now, it has only been sold to the German video market. Damn those lucky Germans!