Comeuppance Reviews Truly the Street Kings (2008) of its day, if any direct-to-video product ever deserved a theatrical release, this is it.In this fast-paced and highly entertaining tale, Detective Kurt Bellmore (Wincott) is a tough L.A. cop who plays by his own rules. His partner Doc (Banks) is retiring soon and wrote a tell-all book about the LAPD's corrupt practices. This doesn't please Lt. Darnell Seagrove (Eastin), who is mired in corruption and kickbacks that go all the way to the top. He's even BFF's with ultra-violent, crafty, diabolical and just downright super evil bad guy Snake Underwood (Fuller). Once some missing money is involved, Bellmore, who is an honest straight-arrow, will stop at literally nothing to take down the bad guys and expose the truth. Even if it means exposing not just himself, but also his wife Anabella (McWhirter) to not just Underwood and his underlings Lucretia (Fabian) and Kazz (LaSardo) - but also the corrupt cops. So they go on the run together. Will they get the justice they seek? This is how all action movies, direct to video or not, should be done. On top of the completely over the top car, gun and action set pieces PM is known for (here they really pull out all the stops), here you also have good acting and an involving plot. Add some silly humor and all the elements come together beautifully.Wincott is in rare form as Bellmore. He has a great, no-nonsense, tough persona. From the minute we see him in his giant yellow suit in the opening chase, we know we're in for something special. He only hijacks awesome vehicles from innocent motorists in the name of the law for his death-defying chases. He might be the most tenacious, determined cop ever. Wincott also does a much better "Noooooo!" in this movie than he does in Fatal Combat (1997).Snake Underwood is the best name PM has come up with for a bad guy since Hologram Man's (1995) Slash Gallagher. Jonathan Banks as Doc should also be singled out for his excellence. Because of his quality performance, it helps invest the audience in the plot. As I believe we've said before on this site, there are such things as GOOD clichés, and not all clichés are bad. It's all in how you do it. Director Merhi seems to understand this, so he delivers explosions and action to the max and killer chase scenes, but it would all mean nothing if we didn't care about Bellmore, Doc and Anabella. So he made sure we do care about the fates of the characters, and that helps immensely. One way Merhi turned convention on its ear, however, is that usually in cop movies and TV shows, IA (Internal Affairs) is portrayed as bad or annoying. Here they are the good guys. So we thought that was interesting. Add that to the expertly-done stunts and you have a definite winner.One of the best PM's and a certified pleasure to watch, make sure you see the rockin' Last Man Standing!

J_schinderlin56 I'm sure that the creators of this movie were going for many things; Believability was not one of them. Our hero Kurt (Punch Rock Groin) opens the flick by chasing a bad guy thru a hotel. Along the way he jumps a 20ft staircase and chases the guy thru 5 or 6 plate glass windows coming up without a scratch. Even more believable is this guy's marriage to his wife whom he evidently knows nothing about, demonstrated by his surprise at her ability to use a gun. As villains chase them with guns and bomb empty barns, she stays true to the 2dimentional stereotype that she is and "Stands by her man". The movie also somehow leaves out or ignores several details about police procedure. Mainly that a cop should identify himself as a police officer and warn suspects to comply before kicking there A**. Or, that after a police officer is suspended, commandeering a civilian vehicle is known as GRAND THEFT AUTO, which our hero commits twice in this film. I mean Heck! Joe Don Baker's "Mitchell" follows police procedure more than this guy does.Overall it seems that the filmmakers must have bought a book on how to make the most cliché, over the top action movie possible and followed it line-by-line, complete with the poser outfits and bad dialogue. My favorite part of the movie was when the big boss bad guy Underwood refers to himself as "The Swashbuckler". Chuck Norris watch out, your days as the king of Cheese ball action movies are numbered!

aloep Impressed with other PM movies such as Executive Target, Ring Of Fire 3 and Rage I imported the US DVD release of this when it came out in early May after reading the review on The Unknown Movies Page. For your info, I was in California this summer and noticed this DVD (as well as The Sweeper, another good PM movie) is available for for $5.99 in the under $10 section in every Virgin Megastore. Should you buy it? I recommend you do so, as this is one of the most competent and entertaining all round action movies I've seen.First things first, it has a relatively simple and easy to follow plot, but one that's not so simple that it insults your intelligence, and one which is kept alive by some excellent pacing and minor twists at just the right places, and is beefed up by some of the best action scenes ever seen on DTV material that you would only find in a PM movie.The action is by far the movies strongest point. The shootouts and the fight scenes are all professionally handled and very sure of themselves. But what stands out most are some fantastic chase scenes, one on foot and 2 main vehicle chases. All of them have some very daring stunts. The vehicle chases (I say "vehicle", as one of them involves an armored van and a motorcycle), are what really stands out. Merhi and Pepin were by far the the best at doing car chases with tons of smashes, crashes and explosions on a small budget in my opinion. These scenes are very well done, and edited together just as well as many big budget pictures like Ronin for example, using appropriate camera angles and never letting us lose track of the action. I was also fairly surprised by the performances of the cast, which raised slightly above the usual standard of straight to video material. Johnathan Fuller provides a slimy, racist character who we can't help but dislike, while Steve Eastin plays the tough, corrupt cop in typical fashion. The performances from the lead characters, Jeff Wincott and Jillian McWhirter as his wife also surprised me. The chemistry between the two is very good. McWhirter comes off as a woman who is very much in love with her husband, and displays a surprising amount of believability when she refuses to leave his side while Kurt is in trouble. Wincott doesn't have a huge amount of dialogue, but what he has and in the few scenes where he has to show emotion, he gives it what he can and is no worse than Chow Yun Fat was in The Replacement Killers. The reason I compare them is because of the lack of dialogue Chow got in that movie.Also interesting is given the fact that Jeff Wincott is a trained martial artist, this does not overdo the martial arts like many B-movies starring martial artists in the lead. Wincott only has a couple of scenes in which he uses them, and these are well executed.All in all, Joseph Merhi has thrown as many action sequences as possible into 90 minutes while still manage to make a comprehensible, well paced and above all thoroughly entertaining action movie around it. Everything is over the top yes, there are continuity errors yes, but what movies don't have that these days? Picture Michael Bay working on a tenth of the budget, but actually being more fun than that.Take it for what it is, and it certainly satisfies.Rating: 8.5/10Oh, and to user "hardane": "As a matter of fact, it was so bad, it inspired me to write this, my only movie review ever"A word of advice. Please never write any more "reviews". Ever. Obviously you haven't seen many movies so you've not been exposed to enough cinema to have an informed opinion.

hardane OH MY GOODNESS!!! This has to be one of the worst movies I've seen in a very long time, and I've seen some stinkers. Lassie could have done a better job editing. Bellmore was taking his wife's glasses to her at work while she's wearing them? A pump shotgun that holds about 25 rounds. Not shells mind you, regular brass rounds. This was worse than some of the Shannon Tweed movies I've seen. I would recommend avoiding this at all costs, unless you want to see how a movie shouldn't be made. It was bad, awful, garbage. As a matter of fact, it was so bad, it inspired me to write this, my only movie review ever. On any site. You'd be better off watching old Miami Vice reruns.