Karen (Pamela Dixon) is a tough L.A. cop who is sick of seeing runaways disappear into the system. Fionna (Kit Harrison) and Angie (Tricia Parks) are two delinquents who have been used and abused on the streets. They’ve worked as prostitutes and been forced to appear in films with titles like Cockadile Dundee. (L.A. Crackdown actually opens with the filming of Cockadile Dundee.) Karen tries to rescue them from the streets by springing them from jail and taking them home with her. At first, her husband (Jeffrey Olsen) is not amused but Karen is determined to do the right thing. After several long stretches of nothing happening and two montages of the women bonding, things go downhill, Karen loses everything, and she decides to get justice by killing a bunch of drug dealers.
I knew what I was getting myself into when I saw the Troma logo at the start of this movie. I respect Troma’s willingness to distribute anything that they can get for cheap but that doesn’t make it any easier to sit through their movies. L.A. Crackdown is slowly paced, badly acted, and looks like it was lit by a flashlight with a dying battery. There are two action scenes, one at the beginning and one towards the end, that manage to be presentable but the rest of the film is full of the long, dull stretches that Troma is known for. Karen seeking revenge on the drug dealers should be the whole point of the movie but it takes forever to reach that point. The revenge isn’t bad but you’ll probably fall asleep before you get there.
L.A. Crackdown is on Tubi. If you’re like me, you might make the mistake of watching it because you’ve gotten it mixed up with a Michael Mann film called L.A. Takedown. Take my word for it. Michael Mann has nothing to do with L.A. Crackdown.
In Zero Tolerance, Robert Patrick plays Jeff Douglas, an FBI agent who is sent down to Mexico to pick up a recently captured drug dealer. Ray Manta (Titus Welliver) is the head of the White Hand drug cartel and he is not happy about having been arrested. When Ray tells Jeff that his entire family is being held hostage and will be killed unless Ray is allowed to escape, Jeff demands that Ray give him his word that no harm will come to his wife and children. Ray gives his “word of honor,” not realizing that his associates have already killed Jeff’s family. Jeff is now out for revenge and he is not going to let the FBI, with its rules and procedures, stand in his way. Jeff is not only out to get Ray. He is also going to track down and kill every member of the White Hand, which includes everyone from Mick Fleetwood (yes, that Mick Fleetwood) to Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter (playing almost exactly the same role that he played in Marked for Death and Only The Strong) to Ator the Invincible himself, Miles O’Keeffe.
Through the Shattered Lens 