Street Law (1995) User Reviews

Fights screwed up the movie for me...

[destroyerwod · 5/10 · 9 January 2013]

This is one of many 90s martial art movies i own, and as i keep my quest to get them all(more or less) it seem the deeper i go and the harder they are to find, the worst they happen to be. I started this "quest" around 4 years ago and naturally after getting every seagal, van damme, lundgren, rothrock and the rest of the more known actors movies, i got to the smaller ones but among them they where good surprise. Billy Blanks made a lot of good ones and the one that interest us today, Jeff Wincott, actually made some pretty good too.

Actually No Exist was one of the first i got 4 years ago, happened to find it in a pawnshop on VHS, and it was pretty decent. Mission of Justice is a VERY GOOD one too. But it seem here, with Street Law, no matter what they tried to do, they just wanted to sink that movie from the get go. The beginning has you wonder "what the hell is happening" and even tough it dosen't last, you may question that choice for a while. Then the stories pick on, and as much as i want to get into it, it seem to be hard to believe that some righteous lawyer would actually do that kind of stuff.

But Jeff is not bad playing the character, there is a couple of good scene of acting i enjoyed, he seem better than your typical low budget martial art movie actor. I could had excuse the scrip and the meltdown of many story arcs it try to accomplish would it had been of why i picked up this movie in the first place... Good Fights. But that was the coffin final nail to me.

They are shot with bad camera angles, terrible slow motions that seem to last all fight long for most of them, not to mention a bunch of them being very short and unnecessary.

Anyway, the movie is not that terrible, its just that its easily forgettable...

There are a lot of unnecessary zooms and slo-mo sequences in the fight scenes. Just let Wincott and the other fighters do their thing.

[tarbosh22000 · 4/10 · 3 December 2018]

Street Law (1995)- * *

Directed by: Damien Lee

Starring: Jeff Wincott, Douglas O'Keefe, Paco Christian Prieto Jonathan Fisher, and Christina Cox









John Ryan (Wincott) is a Toronto-based lawyer. He's also very adept at kickboxing/Punchfighting. Unfortunately, Ryan's life is about to come crashing down all around him. He owes $78,000 to a loan shark named Larry the Lender (O'Keeffe), and, whether through his own actions or because of outside forces, he just may lose his prestigious job, his swanky apartment, and everything else he holds dear. When his childhood friend Luis Calderone (Prieto) - now a criminal baddie - buys Ryan's debt, besides creating strife between the two men, it opens up the only possibility left to Ryan: fight in underground Punchfighting matches to pay off his debt and restore his honor. When Luis's girlfriend Kelly (Cox), who is basically his kept woman, gets involved, things get REALLY complicated. Will John Ryan win back his own life...and will he use STREET LAW to do it?

Not to be confused with the fantastic 1974 Franco Nero movie of the same name (AKA Il Cittadino Si Ribella), this particular Street Law is yet another disappointing Damian Lee movie that isn't worthy of the talents of the great Jeff Wincott. Sure, Street Law opens with a lot of promise: Wincott cruising down the streets of Canada on his Harley, wearing cool shades, with both his long hair and the fringes of his buckskin jacket blowing in the breeze. It's even narrated by Wincott. Soon, however, this promise is squelched.

For no real reason that we can discern even now, we then cut to a scene of Wincott prancing around the forest wearing nothing but a loincloth. Apparently it has something to do with a native-Canadian named Grey Feather (Fisher), who also is only loincloth-clad. Once the actual plot kicks in, there are a lot of dialogue-heavy scenes with unlikable characters the audience doesn't care about. As much as we may love John Ryan's lawyerings, we couldn't help but long for better Wincott outings such as Mission of Justice (1992) or Last Man Standing (1996). Almost all of the fight scenes are officially-organized bouts in the ring (wherein the winner, after defeating his opponent, has to capture a flag tucked into the ceiling above the ring for no real reason) - this is contrary to what the title STREET LAW conjures in your mind.

There are a lot of unnecessary zooms and slo-mo sequences in said fight scenes. Just let Wincott and the other fighters do their thing. Don't muddy the waters with a bunch of cinematic techniques that just get in the way. And not for every scene, but for too many of them, there is a shotgun noise and a quick flash of light as a transition. Not only is this annoying and unnecessary, but Damian Lee did a similar thing in Fatal Combat a few years later (1997), where instead of a gunshot it was loud television static. And as much as we love Wincott, the movie needed another name, such as a Robert Davi or an Eric Roberts to spice things up. The final nail in the coffin is Wincott's famed trademark of stickfighting is there in a literal blink-and-you'll-miss-it two second blip. It looked like there might have been more stickfighting filmed but it was cut. So, put all this together and it's kind of hard to care about the proceedings.

However, it's not ALL doom and gloom. Wincott's buckskin jacket puts Seagal's to shame, and he does have a cool long-hair-and-vest combo that is very 90's and very winning. He also gets to show his acting range somewhat as a lawyer, although he did play a professor in the aforementioned Fatal Combat, a film which does have a lot of similarities to Street Law. Wincott does seem to throw himself into his role, and his Martial Arts are well-executed, but only a handful of moves are really used to their full potential. By far the high-water mark of the entire movie involves a bow and arrow, but we won't give it away, because if you decide to see this muck, we certainly don't want to spoil the unqualified best part for you.

Featuring the song "Undertow", the title track of their 1994 self-released album by Canadian band Big Faith (Tool released theirs in 1993), among other songs by Big Faith, we would say that Street Law is for die-hard Wincott fans only.

You're A Martial Arts Lawyer? Oh.

[refinedsugar · 5/10 · 15 October 2023]

'Street Law' is interesting if you're a fan of Jeff Wincott. It has some cliches typical of dtv fare - underground fight tournament - but it isn't horrible. You do have to buy-in to the fact that a long haired muscled martial artist with real fighting experience also doubles as a successful lawyer though.

John Ryan (Wincott) has gone into hock with a loan shark to the tune of 78k on behalf of some of his poor clients. Enter Luis Calderone (Paco Christian Priesto) as his childhood friend who went to prison after an incident involving both of them. He's built himself up to be a formidable gangster who buys out Ryan's debt, bribes key people, implicates him in a murder in a bid to own him. John is told all he has to do is win some underground fights he runs and he'll be free. Of course, all Luis wants is sweet revenge.

What's holding it back is some poor choices. A "capture the flag" element to the fights adds nothing. A dreadful use of slow-mo, camera work that doesn't even capture blows landing. Plus after the build up & angles the finale is a letdown. Most of the supporting cast are generic.

'Street Law' doesn't look horrible, but you've seen the sum of it's parts done better elsewhere. Priesto made for a decent bad guy. Fans of Jeff Wincott will find bits to like, but this isn't the best flick he's done. Second team-up with director Damian Lee and of course filmed in Toronto.

If you recognize its pedigree, you will be wise enough to avoid this

[Wizard-8 · 18 September 2009]

As the credits for "Law Of The Jungle" started to display, my expectations sank greatly. First, the credits identified the producer of the movie as Ashok Amritraj, a producer who has produced an unbelievable amount of shoddy schlock. Then the director credit came up, identifying the director as Damian Lee, who has directed a lot of really bad movies. But the credits also revealed that star Jeff Wincott was one of the producers. Maybe, I thought, he would bring to this movie what he had learned in his American movies. (This movie is Canadian)

It didn't take very long to realize that this was turning up to be a very bad movie. In fairness to Wincott and Lee, they were working with a really terrible script. (Oh, wait - no fairness to Lee, since I just remembered that he wrote the script for this movie.) It takes about half an hour for the movie to develop something of a plot, and it's very slow-going afterwards. The movie is stuffed with talk talk talk - and not interesting talk.

What about the fight sequences? Well, I'm pretty sure martial arts fans will be greatly disappointed. Lee screws up these scenes like he does with the other parts of the movies. He does make Wincott get hit with a lot more blows than you usually expect the protagonist to get in a movie like this, but other than that interesting aspect, the fights are horribly done. Lee incompetently uses techniques like slow motion, bad camera angles, and very one-sided fights for the most part.

A message for Wincott: Make regular trips to your barber. The long hair look you have in this movie makes you look ridiculous.

close to as bad as it gets

[brenjar · 1/10 · 25 October 2005]

just watching this on late night FREE TV.

bad acting, story, hairstyling, casting choreography, directing,,, can't even be bothered finishing the list.

i love bad TV. i laugh at lame 1 liners and cheap sets. but this is just plain bad.

i think the makers were going for a jean-claude/Dolph lundren type movie, but even they probably would have turned down the role.

the only thing i like is the supposed tough 'mafia' guys who would make anybody they threaten laugh in their face.

do not waste your money on this and if you are looking for cheap laughs you will be waiting a while.

Hey, it's street law, it does not need to make sense!

[Aaron1375 · 3/10 · 31 January 2023]

A movie that goes 100 miles an hour to open up the film, not with fast paced action, but rather with choppy and erratic scene transitions and editing! Street Law!!! A film where the fighting scenes are in super slow motion and dull, yet confronting an old dude, now that is action packed! Where we get butt fondles, fighting attorneys and a guy who wants revenge because he and his childhood friend apparently did a petty crime and were treated like grade a felons...

The story, well, guys yell to start the festivities out and then we watch a guy running through the woods so he can miss a deer. This can be forgotten as it seems totally irrelevant to the plot until the end. A lawyer who owes a loan shark big money for reasons unclear has his debt bought by an old friend who wants his old buddy to do a stupid fight with the unnecessary step of capturing a flag. The friend refuses so bald guys get beat, others paid off and soon the lawyer is forced to partake in the game and professes that he is clean while he apparently took out a huge loan from a loan shark...

Jeff Wincott is the star here and he is a guy you have probably seen, you just do not know the name. I have seen him in several films and in each one his hair is totally different so he does look different in each role in a film that is not very good... The girl is pretty attractive and does have a nice butt though...

So, the film is not boring thanks to the fact no scene really lingers all that long and sometimes we are thrust into a completely unrelated scene out of nowhere! I mean, what was the point of showing a scene in the opening then using it again later? The most boring part are the fights in the ring as they are generally slow paced and lack action; seriously, the guy yelling at the other guy telling him he was evicted was more exciting!

Bland...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 12 April 2024]

Of course I had never heard about this 1995 movie titled "Street Law". I happened to stumble upon it by random chance here in 2024, and opted to sit down and watch it, on account of it being a movie that I knew nothing about.

Writer and director Damian Lee put together a rather bland and generic script that was somewhat devoid of anything interesting or extraordinary. And that made sitting through "Street Law" somewhat of a struggle.

The acting performances in "Street Law" were okay. Nothing outstanding or great, mind you, but for a movie such as this, then the acting performances weren't bad. I was only familiar with leading actor Jeff Wincott in this movie.

There were a couple of action scenes that sort of kept the movie afloat. But hardly something memorable. The slow motion fight scenes, however, were just incredibly cringeworthy to sit through.

While I did manage to sit through "Street Law", this was not a movie that made a lasting impression on me. And I bet that come next week, the movie will be gone from my memory. And this is definitely not a movie that will find its way to my screen a second time.

My rating of "Street Law" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.

Worst film I've ever seen

[princepayne · 1/10 · 5 July 2005]

I just caught this film when I was away on holiday and being a martial arts movie fan I thought I'd check it out, but I have to say it was diabolical.

The fight scenes are slow and poorly choreographed, the acting is laughable and the direction is deplorable. They must have pulled these actors off the streets and thrown them in front of the camera.

When you look at what people like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were doing over 20 years earlier it makes you wonder how these people have the face to make such rubbish. It really is THAT bad.

Don't bother spending any money on this film, buy your wife some flowers or something like that, you'll get a better result!

All the martial arts action you want in a movie!

[christopherchangg · 6/10 · 18 July 2001]

A street wise lawyer deep in debt is forced to repay by participating in illegal martial arts fights. Jeff Wincott exhibits his martial arts skill throughout the entire movie. The story is decent, but being in the martial arts myself, I thought this aspect really delivered.

Not exactly your usual plot

[ctomvelu1 · 6/10 · 29 January 2013]

Jeff Wincott, who was making martial arts flicks at the same time as Jeff Speakman, plays a long-haired lawyer who loses everything -- not entirely his fault, it seems -- and is forced to fight in a series of illegal matches. That part of the plot you've seen before, but the rest of this action flick is a tad unusual. I won't say more about the plot, but I will tell you that the film has some exciting fights, and the ending ties neatly in with the rather odd opening. Wincott is pretty convincing as an ass-kicking lawyer. He is the brother of Michael Wincott, by the way. Worth a look for fans of both action and kung fu type flicks.