Claudia Christian | Through the Shattered Lens

Maniac Cop 2 picks up where the first Maniac Cop ended.

The NYPD thinks that the undead maniac cop Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar) has been destroyed but he is actually still alive and killing civilians and cops in New York. He has even teamed up with a serial killer named Steven Turkell (Leo Rossi, ranting and raving like a pro). Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell) and Theresa Malloy (Laurene Landon) both return from the first film but both of them are killed by Cordell before the movie is even halfway over. Maniac Cop 2 is not playing around.

With Jack and Theresa gone, it falls to Detective Sean McKinney (Robert Davi) and Officer Susan Riley (Claudia Christian) to discover what the rest of the audience already knows, that Cordell is seeking revenge against the system that abandoned him in prison. The new police commissioner, Ed Doyle (Michael Lerner), is determined to cover up what happened but Cordell is even more determined to have his vengeance. Working with Turkell, Cordell heads to the prison where he was unjustly incarcerated and murdered.

Maniac Cop 2 is a marked improvement on the first film. Cordell is no longer a lumbering and slow monster. He is now a ruthless, Terminator-style executioner who, in the film’s best-known scene, wipes out an entire police precinct in a matter of minutes. Cordell is so ruthless that he won’t even stop when he’s on fire. His partnership with Turkell adds a new twist to the Maniac Cop saga. Turkell views Cordell as his partner-in-crime but Cordell is only interested in getting his revenge. (Turkell was originally meant to be Frank Zito, the main character from Lustig’s Maniac. When Maniac star Joe Spinell died before shooting began, the role was changed to Leo Rossi’s Steven Turkell.)

Stepping into the shoes of the main investigation, Robert Davi gives one of his best performances. As opposed to the boring heroes of the first film (sorry, Bruce!), Davi’s Sean McKinney is just as obsessive and ruthless as Cordell. Cordell sets fire and McKinney uses those fires to light his cigarettes.

William Lustig has described Maniac Cop 2 as being his best film and he’s probably right. It is definitely the best of the Maniac Cop films and the only one to fully take advantage of its premise.

Why so serious?

Jack Hammond (Charlie Sheen) was just an innocent clown who worked birthday parties. Then he was mistaken for an outlaw clown and was accused of a crime that he did not commit. When police incompetence led to the only piece of evidence that could exonerate him being tossed out of court, Jack had no choice but to go on the run. Now, he’s in a stolen car, being pursued by not just the cops but also the tabloid media, and he’s got a hostage. Natalie Voss (Kristy Swanson) turns out to be a willing hostage, though. She is the daughter of Dalton Voss (Ray Wise, playing a character who is literally described as being “the Donald Trump of California) and what better way to act out against her father than to fall in love with her kidnapper and help him as he tries to reach the Mexican border?

What’s this?

A good Charlie Sheen movie that was not directed by Oliver Stone or John Milius?

It’s a Christmas miracle!

Actually, it may be misleading to say that The Chase is good.. By most of the standards used to judge whether or not a film qualifies as being good, The Chase fails. There’s no real character development. The plot is as simplistic as a plot can be. A good deal of the movie could be correctly described as stupid. But The Chase has got to be one of the most entertainingly stupid movies ever made. It is about as basic an action comedy as has ever been made. Almost the entire movie takes place on highway, with jokes mixed in with spectacular car crashes and only-in-the-90s cameos from Flea, Anthony Kiedis, and Ron Jeremy. The pace never lets up, Kristy Swanson again shows that she deserved a better film career than she got, and Henry Rollins plays a cop. As for Charlie Sheen, he basically plays the same character that he always plays but at least, when The Chase was made, he was still putting a little effort into it. Maybe because they had already previously worked together in Hot Shots!, Sheen and Swanson have an easy rapport and make even the worse jokes sound passably funny.

The Chase may not be great and it really would have been improved by cameos from Burt Reynolds and Judd Nelson but it’s still damn entertaining.