Fred Williamson plays his standard take no shit
tough guy in good suits and a thin cigar in his mouth. He is like an egg
that won't crack. Always comes out on top because he is the Man. In this
one he is a narcotics cop named Hook in Chi-town with one drug kingpin in
mind. In his unit he has John Saxon and Richard Roundtree. Roundtree must
have been doing it as a favor because he drops out of the film fairly soon
and Saxon not that much later. Friendship only goes so far. His girlfriend
is the one and only Nancy Wilson and she gets to sing a few songs in this
small club that also has jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis tinkle the ivories. Not
bad for a club like this. Williamson is also directing and after seeing the
Jessie Crowder films, I think it might have been wiser to let others direct.
His films have big yawning holes in them like a junkie on 8th avenue.
This one starts off well enough - regular
cop stuff by setting up a drug deal and arresting the culprits including
the main guy, Goldie. Of course, Goldie is out of jail faster than it takes
to wipe the smile off his face. Hooks hears about a big score going down
and he and his buddies bust it up but Goldie runs off with the money and
ditches it into the trunk of a broken down car. And then gets killed by Hooks.
With the money missing the force blames him and suspend him. That doesn't
stop him from shooting a bunch of people and busting their faces wide open.
Has there ever been a suspended cop who
just went home and took it easy. One bad guy is on the ground and Hooks looks
around - sees nobody and kills him. Another guy pisses him off and he shoots
him in the leg. His logic is, since I am not a cop now, I can break the rules.
The bad guys (Bruce Glover, Tony King) come after him and that is just fine.
He knows someone (D'Urville Martin) who keeps hand grenades and machine guns
in his basement. An NRA member no doubt and he is set for war. The film slowly
gets stupider as it goes along till it ends with a clunker ending like they
ran out of money.
