Saturday, February 28

Peacemaker (1990)


Directed by Kevin Tenney
90 Minutes / Fries Home Entertainment / Cropped from 1.85:1 to full screen

An alien spacecraft smashes onto a city beach by night and an imposing man (Lance Edwards) with seemingly super human abilities terrorizes the streets. Finally he's taken down in a hail of bloody cop gunfire. At the morgue the man's wounds suddenly regenerate on the slab and he takes the female coroner (Hilary Shepard) hostage. Robert Forester shows up with a long barrel six-shooter in a failed attempt to save the woman. A cat-and-mouse game between the two men ensue over craft's keys with the woman as a pawn. Both are claiming to be alien cops, but whom can she really trust as they battle for her allegiance.

The director of Witchboard and Night of the Demons delivers a tasty stew of hard sci-fi action. The cast does an admirable job of selling an essentially silly and trite premise with Forester serving up his usual working man's badass shtick. Shepard, who appeared later as the Power Ranger's character Divatox(!?!), carries most of the load and looks great doing it. Robert Davi also shows up for a check as a brash and ultimately inconsequential detective with a phoned-in performance. The action is plentiful with lots of brutal fist fighting, wild chases, and gunplay with some scant gooey effects thrown in. Not exactly original, but I ended up enjoying it much more than expected. Give it a go if you're a fan of such films as They Live or The Hidden.

Film: 6/10
VHS Picture: 7/10
VHS Sound: 7/10

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