Crappy film

A different way of telling a story

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is true grit originating from the eighties. It is almost unbelievable that this is based on real life as there is so much sleaze. Everyone in this film is either a prostitute, a pervert or a cop. The story is good though and this lifts the production. It is hampered by rather bad technical aspects such as jump cutting, continuity and a bloke with a lens standing clearly in shot in a supposedly empty room. Not scary but the action is oddly thrilling. It is violent although not extreme or gory. Alright for a watch as long as you can get past the huge stack of eighties inner-city clichés.

Saw this back when it came out and just saw it again over thirty years later. Just as weird as ever. I seriously doubt they could make this movie today, or even 10 years ago. N1gger? Fagg0t? Just not gonna fly. Basically a no name cast, or very little known, made it grittier. A few scenes are a tad hokey, but keep in mind it was 1982 Los Angeles. Very hard to come by but one lone torrent is floating around with a single seed. Worth a watch every 30 years to be sure. Cole Hauser, the son of Wings, acts today and is what made me take a second look at his wacky dad. I sure do miss the days of one line reviews allowed here. Yeah, I've been here that long. Just a crying shame I have to blather on at the very end like this.

Although I am tired of sex and violence in movies, there are times when a movie can incorporate them and still be intelligent and memorable.This is one of those movies.It is obvious that all who were involved in its production had a clear vision and executed it perfectly.The atmosphere just oozes menace and sleaze, but there are blackly humorous episodes -- such as when an aging, wealthy pervert invites a prostitute to officiate at his "funeral" in a classically ostentatious Hollywood estate complete with church pipe organ music.Such details are what make this movie, and some of them are so bizarre that -- as in life -- they must be true because no one could have thought them up.And yet they were thought up.So this movie ends up vindicating the power of imagination, as the best art must do. Okay, I'm going a bit overboard here, calling this movie "art," but let's just say it's very artful and leave it at that.I sense the influence of Stanley Kubrick in the way the movie was directed: a succession of set pieces, almost as if one were in the audience facing a stage.Now after saying all of these nice things, let me warn the potential viewer that this is indeed a brutal, disturbing and depressing movie insofar as the subject matter is concerned.It will give some people nightmares. And it will satisfy the lusts and violent desires of others.And as far as the violence goes, it is scary precisely because we know that these things really do happen to people.

Vice Squad seemed to have all the right ingredients for being a truly memorable thriller. Something seems to have gone wrong, however, and the film never really takes off like you expect it to. The story centers around the Hollywood Vice Squad attempting to arrest a dangerous pimp by using a classy working girl as bait to lure him into confessing about another prostitute's murder. The film has plenty of interesting characters, but it doesn't always develop them as much as you'd hope. The film also misfires in the sense that it makes the cops the focus of the story. Either the pimp or the main hooker should have gotten top billing.The fact is it's the lead detective who gets top billing. The actor who plays him hardly has any screen presence. The thing you'll remember most about him is his maroon Members Only jacket! Season Hubley is very good as "Princess". She's a high end call girl who is forced to help the Vice Squad nail a nasty redneck pimp known as "Ramrod". Ha ha!!! Wings Houser gives a nice performance as the dangerous hustler who dresses like an urban cowboy and drives a huge Ford Bronco around Hollywood. For a character as interesting as this, they should have given him much more screen time! The scenes he has are by far the most memorable. Most of the film deals with Ramrod tracking Princess down after he escapes from police custody after she sets him up.SPOILERS AHEAD:The film has its strengths. The sleazy side of Hollywood Blvd is wonderfully filmed by legendary cinematographer John Alcott. The acting is generally passable if not very good. The film knows its an exploitation pic, and it never gets pretentious or overbearing. There are more than a few problems with this film, though. First of all, the film meanders a bit too much. It almost looks like a project where they all went out and started filming before the script was even finished. Some scenes, like one in a mansion, are well done yet they almost don't seem to belong in the final cut. Some scenes just don't play realistically. Take the scene of Ginger's death. Notice how everyone is standing around her, and nobody even tries to revive her when she flat lines! Hello! They're in a hospital! There are doctors all around! Wouldn't they at least try to save her?? The conclusion is poorly constructed, as well. There is an army of cops waiting to storm a warehouse where Ramrod is torturing Princess. They seem to take forever to get into position, and all this does is give the man more time to torment her. The whole scene just rings false. Also, the resolution would have been much more satisfying if Princess had been the one to finally kill Ramrod off. The cop just isn't an interesting enough character to take that honor.Go ahead and try this film if you stumble across a copy. Don't be surprised if you think you could have written a better script, though. 5 of 10 stars. Oh, and props to Wings Hauser for singing the neat song during both the beginning and ending credits!The Hound.