Officer Down (2005) Online

I liked this a lot better than I thought I would! Though the plot stretches credibility and Christopher Miller occasionally overdirects (memo to Miller: lose the strobe-like digital effects next time), for the most part this is a taut, suspenseful, better-than-average film with a marvelous performance by Fenn as the honest cop investigating a vigilante (Casper Van Dien) who turns out to be a fellow officer. Van Dien's performance is chilling and Stephen Johnston's script has a lot to say about the thin line between enforcing the law and taking it into your own hands. I was surprised to see from the entry on this site that this was a U.S. production (I'd had the impression it was filmed in Canada) and I suspect from the awkward compositions and the all-too-obvious editing out of obscene words that this was originally shot for theatrical release and the version I saw (on the Lifetime channel) was panned-and-scanned and edited for TV.

If this movie was written directed and produced with the intention of creating a bad movie cult classic, it might (i say might) have been a hit. Have you ever sat and watched a movie that was so absolutely awful that it becomes fascinating in terms of its faults? Well this is it. Every one of the acting cast should be nominated for worst acting performance awards. It would be hard to find another film, with this kind of production budget, that contains so little of any value whatsoever. The whole thing, from the opening scenes defies logic. Dialogue is completely unbelievable and illogical. Ditto for the behaviour and general storyline of the film itself. What is really mind boggling, is that some buffoons in a boardroom actually made decisions to spend money on this piece of trash. Wow.

Someone is killing L.A.'s major drug dealers, and anyone else who gets in the way. Officer Down stars Sherilyn Fenn as an officer with the LAPD who realizes the problem may be much closer than she ever thought.

Fenn is good, and Casper Van Dien has an almost angelic look here, but in an evil way. Definitely some polished actors present, as Ted Shackelford (Knots Landing) and Larry Drake (L.A. Law) are cast. The newer talent is also quite good, with Jordan Roberts and James Patric Moran giving memorable performances. Jerry Kroll (Second to Die) is a good actor and I hope to see him in more projects. Great shots of Los Angeles and Hollywood.

The scariest thing about Officer Down is that it makes police corruption look all too plausible. This gritty film premiered on Lifetime last summer, and the opening sequence had me hooked. Worth a look. 9/10

**SPOILERS** Much like the Clint Eastwood 1973 movie "Magnum Force" the film "Officer Down" is about a group of corrupt policemen who take the law into their own hands and go on a killing spree offing all the major drug dealers in the city of L.A.

The killer cops are lead a a religious psycho officer Philip Gammon, Casper Van Dien,who we learn later in the movie is the son of a top L.A police commander Donald Hallows, Ted Shackelford. Hallows who himself turns out to be so unstable in his actions that he has his gang of crime cops turn on even innocent bystanders who were willing to give evidence to the drug killings, in order to protect the identity of the cop killers. Hallows even has the killer cops go a step beyond even killing innocent citizens by having honest cops, and their families, who got wind of what's really going on murdered by his dirty cops; which makes them even more dangerous then the most hardened and vicious criminals in L.A.

The best reason for seeing "Officer Down" is the many aerial photography scenes of L.A in it but the story itself is hard to take. Not that there aren't any corrupt cop in LA in real life but the cops who are breaking the law in the movie are so stupid and ridicules that you wonder why they weren't caught before the film even began?

Sherilyn Fenn as Det. Kathryn Shaunessy is a bit too melodramatic as the good cop up against the system that's protecting the wrong doers in the department. Kathryns partner Det. Gary Hill, Jerry Knoll,is totally unbelievable as her partner who's, you guessed it, one of them but doesn't seem know it. Garry is totally unconscious in what trouble he's putting his innocent partner into by his actions. We get to see the good side about Gerry with the explanation of him taking $100,000.00 of dirty money from his crooked police captain Taggert (Larry Drake) who's another high ranking crook in the department, to pay for his sick fathers medical bills.

Casper van Dien is also hard to take in his zombie-like and murderous actions that are so outlandish that even his dad, Commander Hallows, a high ranking member of the LAPD had trouble covering them up.

Watched this film on Lifetime which involved a group of people who decided evil doers in this world must simply disappear. There are a series of point blank hits on drug dealers through out the Los Angeles area and Sherilyn Fenn,"Cement",'99, portrays a newly appointed detective who becomes deeply involved with the case. Sherilyn had a very successful father on the force and has a strong will to be as accomplished as her dad. There is mention of trying to wipe out evil from the face of the earth and some people are taking the law into their own hands and care nothing about who they hurt, even a baby faces death. There is no romantic scenes, except plenty of murders and all kinds of people trying to solve the so called problem.