by Jason Daniel Baker

Created on: March 19, 2008   Last Updated: March 20, 2008

Down 'n Dirty (2000) Starring Fred Williamson, Tony Lo Bianco, Rod McCary, Gary Busey, Bubba Smith, David Carradine, Charles Napier, Frank Pesce, Sam Jones, Beverly Johnson, Randy Goodwin, Andrew Divoff, Suzanne Von Schaak, David Novak Cynthia Palmer, Bill Erwin, Tim White, Allen Cutshaw, Bruce Kenny, Laura Redgrave, Enya Flack, Sarah Scott.

Directed by Fred Williamson.

Running time: 90 minutes.

Rating: R

Thuggish, cigar chomping Los Angeles Police Detective Dakota Smith (Williamson) and his partner employ a brutal "Bad cop, worse cop" strategy in their work. When Smith's partner is killed on duty "Dak" wants to take down those responsible one way or another even though he is taken off the case by his superiors and warned to stay away from anything related to the case. It turns out to be crooked cops and Dak has his hands full.

Wow that's original! Why didn't I think of a plot like that? It has been done like a thousand times now. Williamson's Jesse Crowder movies in the 1970s were pretty bad but they were much better than this.

Those productions have been correctly identified as Blaxploitation but that is not an accurate assessment of what this film is. This is merely an ill-timed rip-off of Dirty Harry with an African-American actor. Still, if ex-football star was to do a film playing this kind of character he might just as well have named him Jesse Crowder.

If not that much happens in an action movie is it still an action movie? The only way that this braindead snoozefest challenges audiences is in their ability to stay awake through even just its first half-hour.

Much of the supporting cast seem to be refugees from 1970s crime dramas and the whole thing looks like a desperate and inept attempt to recreate past successes using old actors.

Williamson's own performance in the lead is a cranky, one-note effort. Sadly, when an actor also takes the director's chair he loses a convenient scapegoat if his ensuing performance then blows. When compared with all the old greats from 1970s cinema in the cast he comes up lacking that much more.

If you want to make a good movie start with a decent script, get a real director then cast it properly. In other words don't involve Fred Williamson.

Rod McCary is amusingly miscast as the chief of police and looks like he is doing an impression of Barney Miller right down to the costuming. Guys who dye their eyebrows and moustaches while letting their hair go silver on top freak me out with their particular interpretation of male vanity. I'm not saying McCary (featured in those silly Viagra commercials saying stuff like "Monkey-kwank") did that here nor does it now. I'm just saying it.

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