So much average

Sadly Over-hyped

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

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.

Here's a film that was a warm welcomed surprise. If you want to be entertained, get Mark Lester to do it. And when you have great actors like Glenn and Phillips as the leads, you know you're in for surefire entertainment. Here, it's more explosive entertainment, in a well polished and slick actioner about loose vigilante justice, only the justice here is wearing a badge. SIS is Special Investigation Section, a secret division of cops, who are out to take out the worst high profile offenders, ready at the assigned locale, for when they strike, only we have more murders than arrests. Losing his cool with a scummy piece of s..t, undercover cop, Jeff Powers (Phillips) is the latest to join Glenn's warm posse of cops, but being a witness to long time friend, Glenn's reckless actions, puts a strain on the work relationship, where soon at first hand, Jeff begins to see the real truth about this organization. The films has great shootouts and action, brilliantly staged, with no dull moment to spare. Chelsea Field, a really good actress, plays Phillip's older girlfriend, an avid reporter, out to bust this squad. The last scene, a stand off between Glenn and Phillips, where all out war is declared, is my favorite. Have to viddy this surprisingly well made film again. To bag this film, you'd have to be a bit off. Great, exciting entertainment, based on real incidents. Watch.

***SPOILERS*** It's when overly aggressive and hot headed cop Jeff Powers, Lou Diamond Phillips, is assigned top the exclusive SIS unite of the L.A police Department that he comes top realize that his brutal tactics were humanitarian actions compared to that outfit. The SIS, that sounds a lot like the mid-east terrorist organization ISIS, is involved in letting criminals commit the most horrendous crimes like murder & rape so that they can first get the goods on them and then blow them away without trial!It's Powers' partner and head of SIS Dan Vaughn, Scott Glenn,who orchestrates and sets up the targeted by letting them get away with literally bloody murder just so he can gun them down and keep them off the city streets, in their graves not prison cells, forever with no regards to their victims lives. How Vaughn & his boys get away with all this is by the internal affairs of the police department looking the other way by not doing anything to stop them. It's Powers who gets religious when his girlfriend L.A Chronicle reporter Kelly Daniels, Chelsea Fields, writes an expose on the death squad unit that if fact exposed him as one of its members!***SPOILERS*** Powers soon learns that he's on SIS's hit-list and the only way to save his as well as Kelly's behind is to come clean and expose SIS to the public, the cops were no help, before it can do any more damage! To him Kelly as well as the citizens of the city. With everything now out in the wash, in SIS being exposed by the L.A Chronicle, Powers comes to see the discredited but still on the L.A police force Dan Vaughn to tell him what he thinks of him and his gestapo like police organization. The ending isn't pretty with the usual cool as a cucumber Vaughn losing it and going completely insane in trying to murder the man , Jeff Powers, who fingered him. were told at the end of the movie that Vaughn ended up shot to death in one of his set-up raids that went terribly wrong for him. As for Powers he resigned from the LAPD and is now the head of internal affairs at the city of Detroit Police Department.

Mark L. Lester has directed some of the most enjoyably trashy movies ever ("Roller Boogie," "Class of 1984," "Gold of the Amazon Women" etc.), mostly working in the low-budget direct- to-video or TV movie realm though he briefly entered the mainstream with the Stephen King adaptation "Firestarter" and Stallone vehicle "Commando." I haven't seen much of his more recent work, but always perk up when I see his name on a DVD or old VHS tape--his movies are sometimes ridiculous but they're almost always energetic and entertaining.This is actually one of his more respectable efforts, as it's a fairly effective indictment of police corruption that was made at a time when LAPD was under close scrutiny for just that. Lou Diamond Phillips plays a conscientious (but incongruously long-haired) young police officer recruited to a special unit, teamed with his mentor Scott Glenn. They're assigned to track down serial murderers, rapists and robbers, but somehow every time they apprehend the bad guys, all the perps and usually a few innocent bystanders end up dead--the whole squad is way too trigger-happy, esp. Glenn. Phillips gets increasingly uncomfortable with this, leading to the inevitable tension (a la the later "Training Day") between cop veteran and newbie partner.Both leads are good, the violent action is solidly handled, and the movie is less campy but no less fun than many of Lester's other films. It's nothing great, but it's a solid "B" flick.

Supposedly this film when it came out caused a bit of a stir and controversy by claiming that the idea behind the premise (an elite group of LAPD cops operating outside normal police guidelines that target high-profile criminals) was inspired by facts. The idea is scary (bystanders sometimes considered necessary sacrifices), but not particularly new as it did remind me of the Dirty Harry sequel; "Magnum Force". Although this death squad were not rogues operating outside the law as in that film; well that's what they like to think in what is an official unit. "Extreme Justice" might be audacious, but what occurs is by-the-book and formulaic. Director Mark L. Lester's mechanically brazen handling balances the tough action with the not-so black-and-white context. Some set-pieces are frenetic and raw, chucking in foot-chases, car-chases, bloody shootouts and Mark Irwin's sweeping photography. Sure it can be somewhat heavy-handed and morally bounded, but Lester keeps it reality bounded and it's the lead performance of Scott Glenn that sells it. He plays the leader of the S.I.S (Special Investigation Section) unit. Glenn's outstanding performance is lean, but also ballsy and cynical as you can see it beginning to affect him. Lou Diamond Phillips suitably plays the brash, but idealistically rough newcomer to the squad who actually begins to question the methods in how they go about getting the job done. Watching the two go at it fuelled some tension in between the set- ups after set-ups. There's good support from the likes of Yaphet Kotto, Chelsea Field, Richard Grove, William Lucking, L. Scott Caldwall and Ed Lauter as the police captain. Daniel Quinn and Andrew Divoff play some criminals. While also look for action stuntman Larry Holt and stuntman / actor Bob Minor."Trust me amigo. You're made for this work."