B Plus Movies

Back before HBO pumped out Emmy nominees on a regular basis, they would pad their schedule with a variety of accquired and in-house films that ranged from schlock to inspired. They seemed to pull on the both the outstanding as much as whatever was at hand to produce intersting and watchable television, sometimes giving a glimpse into the heights they would later touch with bold and poingant stories.

One movie that had shades of greatness in the folds of it’s script was Beyond the Law.

Proving that Steven Segal doesn’t have the monopoly on three word titles, Charlie Sheen stars in this picture about an cop who goes undercover, working his way into a bike gang in the American southwest. He takes on the part whole cloth to the point that the line begins to blur between cop and the biker persona he’s created for himself. In the end, our hero has to fight to keep himself as much as he has to fight to bring the outlaws to justice.

There’s a lot to like in this film. In addition to Charlie, we have Michael Madsen (Mr. Blonde from Resivoir Dogs) as a gang leader. Linda Fiorentino (frequent femme fatale and star of Dogma) stars as the very believable love interest and Leon Rippy (Saving Grace) as a burnout biker who guides Charile Sheen’s character along the way. All of them give amazing performances. The movie is made, though, by the Charlie Sheen’s dedication to his role; he really comes across as on the edge, half crazy and seriously in danger of losing himself.

The well crafted tension and drama drives the story but sometimes does it in spite of some of the choices made by the director. There’s a few places where the movie seems confused as to weither it’s going to be an action movie or a cop thriller. Also, there’s a subplot about an incident in the cop’s past, one that suggests he may have been abused by someone dressed as a police officer, which seems truly tacked on to the movie. Given that the movie is based on a true story, it could be a historical fact, but it still seems irrelivant to the character’s flirtation with madness.

I went back and forth, but in the end I have to give Beyond the Law a B+, just for the sheer, raw power that gets conveyed in the performance of the star and the dilemmas faced by the main character. The one bit of trivia I’ve read about this movie is that the real cop the movie is based on appeared as an extra in the film and I hope he was happy with how his story was told. The makers of this film could have easily let it degenerate into a bullet ridden thrill ride, but instead we get a genuinely powerful tale, a look into the mind of a man trying hard to keep himself together in the a high pressure situation that would cause weaker souls to crack.

If you find this one in the $5 bin, get it. You’ll watch it more than once. I know I have.

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