The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This routine action thriller never breaks the boundaries - instead happy to follow in the footsteps of countless older brothers. Yes, it's the old cop corruption routine again, going back all the way to SERPICO in the early '70s. This serviceable flick has some good action bits and some lame "bonding" scenes - just as you would expect, really.One thing the film has in its favour is the cast, with loads of familiar faces in major roles. Thomas Ian Griffith, who you may recognise as the chief vampire Valek in Carpenter's VAMPIRES, is a pretty much wooden action hero. In his favour he's very tall which makes him imposing - check out that vampire film - but his action? Well, it just looks like he's taken up martial arts at college, there is no particular grace in his moves, they're just realistic-looking.Lance Henriksen enjoys himself in a villainous turn, but doesn't come close to the entertaining nastiness he exudes in the same year's HARD TARGET. Also popping up are James Earl "Darth Vader" Jones, in his patented crusty old good guy role, and Tony Todd, who has spent the last two decades acting his way through a million straight-to-video flicks. Burt Young also gets a brief opportunity to chew the scenery.Aside from the action, this is typical stuff, with some gratuitous nudity thrown in for good measure. The action itself is sometimes brutal (although it was trimmed, as I saw this on television), and a refreshing amount of bad guys get taken care of. There are also some explosions and some shooting bits to keep things moving along. Okay, so EXCESSIVE FORCE is nothing special, but it passes the time and could have been a lot worse. Let's just think of something new next time, guys...

I really enjoyed this film. But not because of his action scenes, which action-crime films usually offers. The strongest edge of this film is acting crew. I mean, check it out: Thomas Ian Griffith (known from "Karate Kid 3" and "Vampires", the leading man here, he did a fine job, but on some moments pretty shallow performance, nevertheless, he is good), Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Alien 3, AVP, OK, no surprises here, this commanding and great actor appeared in many low budget films, so it's not surprising at all), Charlotte Lewis ("Pirates" and "Men of War", well, I think she was chosen because of her beauty, nothing more), Burt Young (Rocky films, he is a good actor and I usually expected him in supporting roles in big budget films), W. Earl Brown ("Deadwood", he is great, and this was one of his first works), Tony Todd ("Candyman", great, scary actor, known for his trade mark height and deep, spooky voice, well, he appeared in most of these low budget films, so it's not surprising at all) and James Earl Jones ("Star Wars", now... I was really confused about him here, what a hell? How did he get here, the best actor in the film... in such low budget film, well, maybe he liked the crew too). And I think that acting crew is the best thing in this film and it's worth watching because of it.Now, when it comes to script and plot, it's an average revenge seeking film, I mean this film was really unknown, and yet they put a challenging taglines like "Meet the new contender", "In 70s, we had Bruce Lee, 80s Chuck Norris and now in 90s... meet the new guy", all that exaggerated claims... and in the end... no luck. I think that Griffith is a good actor and a good martial artist, but this kind of movies can't do much for you... If you are a fan of these kind of films, you can easily enjoy it.

Terry McCain (Griffith) is a Chicago cop who is pretty much on the edge. A member of the Tactical Narcotics Unit, he's obsessed with taking down the slick mobster drug dealer Sal DiMarco, who, like John Gotti, seems to be made of "Teflon" and always manages to avoid jail time. During a shootout with the DiMarco mob, three million dollars in a suitcase goes missing. Naturally, DiMarco wants it back, and he assumes McCain and his team are behind the missing loot. So now the mobsters are after the cops, and McCain and his girlfriend (Lewis) must go on the run. Luckily Police Chief Devlin (Henriksen) has given McCain a wide berth to go off on his own (not necessarily "rogue") and catch/punch/kick/kill the baddies. After some mild twists and turns in the plot, we see who is the true dispenser of EXCESSIVE FORCE.The good news is, this is a movie that lives up to its title. There's some hilariously, unnecessarily brutal violence, as if the writer (T.I.G. himself, interestingly enough) felt he HAD to live up to the title. Like he thought, "well, I already spent all day coming up with this title, better make sure the movie has an excessive amount of force". Well played, Mr. Ian Griffith. Well played.The real reason to watch this movie isn't Thomas Ian Griffith's constant roundhouse and jump kicks, but the killer cast! For starters, what is James Earl Jones doing here? This might make an action movie first: a Shakespearean actor on hand to play Jazz with Thomas Ian Griffith! Terry McCain is a pretty in-the-pocket Jazz pianist, just so you know. (McCain also has an earring, so you know he's cool, long, greasy hair , resembles Christian TV evangelist Joel Osteen and might be a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia. Research is still being done).Then we have Lance Henriksen, doing his best as Devlin, Tony Todd as Frankie, again, struggling against some potential mediocrity and coming out quite well, the awesome Burt Young doing what he does best - being Burt Young. The movie could have used more Burt. The presence of Charlotte Lewis as the model Anna Gilmour was appreciated. And of course all the lesser-known names in the cast performed admirably as well. Additionally, the Martial Arts Technical Adviser on the film was Benny "The Jet" Urquidez. Sadly he doesn't appear on screen. So you have a much better than average cast for this sort of thing, which is nice, and they help to sell the more inane aspects of the plot without you even realizing it, because that's what good actors do. And, yes, this movie is riddled with clichés, but for the most part they are the FUN clichés you want (You mean Terry McCain's use of excessive force is always getting him in trouble? No way!). Amazingly enough, this movie went to the theater! It never would today. Maybe the cast is part of the reason why.But the movie is enjoyable, if not groundbreaking, and, yes, much of the brutality is fairly unwarranted, but this is EXCESSIVE FORCE people! While not nearly as violent as, say, Wardogs (1986), perhaps Griffith felt he went too far and didn't want to be pigeonholed, so the follow-up, Ulterior Motives (1993), is less impactful. 'Motives does not consistently and strongly follow up Excessive Force properly and a lot of steam was taken out of the T.I.G. train. That might explain why he isn't really a household name, even among action movie fans.For a fun beat/shoot 'em up, try Excessive Force.for more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

This is an average, low budget action flick that really has nothing interesting about it. It is a typical action flick as to the plot, but not as to the action. The title suggests a lot of fighting + a lot of Blood. ERROR. None of that, all of this combined with a lack of good casting means that this is really nothing special. So please hear me, not bad, but not good either only watch on TV if you've got nothing else to do or if you're drunk. DO NOT RENT!!!!5 out of 10