I caught this Filipino action film under the title LETHAL KILLING FORCE although it also seems to masquerade under the titles CRIME STOPPER and American FORCE FIGHTER. It's a cookie cutter piece of film-making whose major scenes and set-pieces are liberally borrowed from previous Filipino war films. Godfrey Ho, the infamous Hong Kong director who enjoyed making dozens of cut and paste movies, would be proud! Imagine my astonishment when a torture-by-dunking scene from BLACKFIRE, a film I watched just the day before, was once again played out in its entirety here! The story is nothing special, with US agent Romano Kristoff sent on a rescue mission to free some kidnapped hostages, but the reliance on stock footage makes this a cheapo rip-off and nothing more.
2 Reviews
It's a non-stop fun parade of violence and nonsense, what's not to love?
tarbosh2200026 November 2018
Warning: Spoilers
An evil South American dictator named Ortega runs a "drug camp" and former Vietnam buddies Ray "Smithy" Smith (Gaines) and Mark Mitchell (Rom) are called in by the government to shut it down permanently...using any means necessary. After Mitchell is captured and imprisoned by Ortega's goons, Smith goes undercover in the drug camp to break him out. Once the men are reunited, no force on earth can stop them. But they're going to have to be careful - Ortega then captures Mitchell's sister Carol and now the mission of the two warriors has to alter to rescue her from the clutches of the sinister and nefarious Ortega. Will the mission succeed?
Crime Stopper (AKA Lethal Killing Machine) is an amazingly fun cocktail of wackiness and non-stop violence that only could have arisen in the Philippines in the early 90's. We have been Teddy Page fans for a long time, and only now are have we discovered that this is one of his best and most all-around entertaining outings. It's also one of the all-time best "30% New Footage!" movies we've ever seen, putting most of Godfrey Ho's catalog to shame, as Crime Stopper has recycled Rom footage from his other outings such as Blackfire (1985) and Double Edge (1986). Does any of it make sense? No. Do we care? No. Would we have it any other way? Of course not!
First there are some unknown men shooting at each other and chasing each other. Then some different guys are beating the snot out of each other in a kickboxing match (one of which is Ned Hourani). Then more unknown men shoot at them with machine guns. Then a car blows up. Then a grammatically-questionable title card appears on screen to explain (?) what we just saw. Then there are some more blow-ups. Then some tanks enter the picture, and some more unknown guys are fighting a war. The viewer doesn't know who is who. There is no explanation for anything at all. That's when you surrender and go with the flow. Once you submit to the nonsensical charm of Crime Stopper, you will have a fantastic time. We can just about guarantee it. All you have to do is throw logic out the window and embrace the absurdity and you will have an extremely enjoyable time.
Mitchell is the White Guy and Smith is the Black Guy. Mitchell's code name is Cobra. Smith's code name is Black Mamba. That probably wouldn't happen today. But maybe the Cobra code name makes sense because the filmmakers continually want to make the viewer think of Rom Kristoff as some sort of second coming of Stallone. Have you seen the poster for Double Edge? That should explain things. Even the title, Crime Stopper, seems to be a reference to Marion Cobretti's obsession with crime statistics. Even though the movie has nothing whatsoever to do with stopping street crime, they went with that anyway.
Just Jim Gaines walking down the street is an entertaining thing to watch in this movie because he looks cool, and you know something awesome is about to happen. He wears a T-shirt that says "Normal is Boring", and when it comes to Crime Stopper, he couldn't be more apropos. As far as the voices coming out of the characters' mouths, there's a lot of silly dubbing by silly men with silly voices. That alone is worth seeing. Or, more appropriately, hearing. Speaking of great stuff you hear, the score by Patrick Wales is terrific and deserves a CD/vinyl reissue. Hey, if they could do it for Striker (1988), they really should do it for this too.
All in all, Crime Stoppers is a movie right up our alley. It's a non-stop parade of violence and nonsense. It's fun, entertaining, and short. It makes no rational sense whatsoever, but something is always happening because the movie moves along at a fast clip. What's not to love? Recommended.
Crime Stopper (AKA Lethal Killing Machine) is an amazingly fun cocktail of wackiness and non-stop violence that only could have arisen in the Philippines in the early 90's. We have been Teddy Page fans for a long time, and only now are have we discovered that this is one of his best and most all-around entertaining outings. It's also one of the all-time best "30% New Footage!" movies we've ever seen, putting most of Godfrey Ho's catalog to shame, as Crime Stopper has recycled Rom footage from his other outings such as Blackfire (1985) and Double Edge (1986). Does any of it make sense? No. Do we care? No. Would we have it any other way? Of course not!
First there are some unknown men shooting at each other and chasing each other. Then some different guys are beating the snot out of each other in a kickboxing match (one of which is Ned Hourani). Then more unknown men shoot at them with machine guns. Then a car blows up. Then a grammatically-questionable title card appears on screen to explain (?) what we just saw. Then there are some more blow-ups. Then some tanks enter the picture, and some more unknown guys are fighting a war. The viewer doesn't know who is who. There is no explanation for anything at all. That's when you surrender and go with the flow. Once you submit to the nonsensical charm of Crime Stopper, you will have a fantastic time. We can just about guarantee it. All you have to do is throw logic out the window and embrace the absurdity and you will have an extremely enjoyable time.
Mitchell is the White Guy and Smith is the Black Guy. Mitchell's code name is Cobra. Smith's code name is Black Mamba. That probably wouldn't happen today. But maybe the Cobra code name makes sense because the filmmakers continually want to make the viewer think of Rom Kristoff as some sort of second coming of Stallone. Have you seen the poster for Double Edge? That should explain things. Even the title, Crime Stopper, seems to be a reference to Marion Cobretti's obsession with crime statistics. Even though the movie has nothing whatsoever to do with stopping street crime, they went with that anyway.
Just Jim Gaines walking down the street is an entertaining thing to watch in this movie because he looks cool, and you know something awesome is about to happen. He wears a T-shirt that says "Normal is Boring", and when it comes to Crime Stopper, he couldn't be more apropos. As far as the voices coming out of the characters' mouths, there's a lot of silly dubbing by silly men with silly voices. That alone is worth seeing. Or, more appropriately, hearing. Speaking of great stuff you hear, the score by Patrick Wales is terrific and deserves a CD/vinyl reissue. Hey, if they could do it for Striker (1988), they really should do it for this too.
All in all, Crime Stoppers is a movie right up our alley. It's a non-stop parade of violence and nonsense. It's fun, entertaining, and short. It makes no rational sense whatsoever, but something is always happening because the movie moves along at a fast clip. What's not to love? Recommended.
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