Dead Aim (1987) User Reviews (4)

If you can find it cheap, check it out.

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 21 May 2013]

Detective Malcolm "Mace" Douglas (Marinaro) is a cop who plays by his own rules and has a bad attitude. His partner Cain (Larson) is the opposite: a clean-cut, by the book kind of guy. While working the vice squad, they see the seamier side of life on the Atlanta streets: drugs, prostitutes, and street crimes of all types. When the strippers at the Fool's Paradise club start dying of supposed heroin overdoses, Mace investigates and finds that there's a conspiracy that goes somewhere...oh yeah...all the way to the top! The FBI and the KGB are involved, with connections to a shadowy figure hiding behind his "diplomatic immunity" (Goz) and his partner Flexnor (Washburn). Will Mace mace his way through this maze? Dead Aim is an entertaining cop drama/thriller with Ed Marinaro fitting the role of the Cop On The Edge nicely. One of the things about this movie that is so enjoyable are all the classic cop clichés: There's the prerequisite BYC (the Black Yelling Chief for those who don't read the site regularly), he yells that Mace has "the highest mortality rate in Metro!", and naturally, thanks to Mace's rogue ways, later in the film he says the classic "give me your gun and badge!" There are other clichés as well, but thankfully they're all done well, and Dead Aim as a whole is not bad thanks to some good acting, decent ideas and a few nice directorial touches.

There's an attempt at some realism, and the plot that delves into the seamier side of life is reminiscent of Stripped To Kill (1987) and the Wings Hauser vehicle Vice Squad (1982), among others, as it was a popular subject at the time. You gotta love that red lighting and neon atmosphere. The fact that there's a stripper named Misty (Sandi Brannon) should tell you all you need to know: we can all nostalgically sigh about when girls were named "Misty"...it truly was a different time.

And while Ed Marinaro wouldn't wow us again until The Protector (1999), let's not forget about his co-stars here: Corbin Bernsen of all people is on board right before his success with L.A. Law happened. Isaac Hayes plays Jamal, a crime lord with an unidentifiable accent and some cool threads. For no explained reason, he's protected by an army of Asians at all times. Besides the aforementioned Washburn and Goz, there's also William Sanderson as the lab tech, and William Windom is here too. So the cast does add some extra texture to this tale.

So for more of the quality end of the sleaze spectrum (it's really not all that sleazy), see Dead Aim, as it remains a cliché-ridden good time. Keep in mind that's not an insult. Vestron released it on VHS back in the good old days. If you can find it cheap, check it out.

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independent cop film should be more recognized

[senor_small · 24 March 2003]

Dead aim is a very intense/suspensful cop thriller that is fun. Ed marinaro's role as det. malcolm douglas plays a very dedicated role as the police officer, who is on the line between justice and revenge. Mace who is douglas's nick name is fighting between two gang's taking place in atlanta, georgia, one russian gang led by Harry Goz's character androsov is very interesting. and his right hand man Epi Flexnor, played by character actor rick washburn was very intense. and of couirse the cool gang led by Jamal played by Isaac Hayes was fun, to see him with an accent. mace is caught in between two worlds of gangs. he also investigates the murder's of the herion overdoses of a few exotic dancers. the film's supporting cast also includes, Corbin Bernsen(la law, Major league) william sanderson (blade runner) , john hancock and william windom star in this film. later in the film, it get's more disturbing to what happens to the featured characters. there some action scenes, but is fit to be a police drama. this film was very realistic, intense cop film that people may enjoy, if they like cop films. the film is very short, it should have been a little longer, and the ending is a little confusing and surprising. i like those kind of endings for films of all categories, cause, you get to make it up your own ending. Mace is also a lonesome cop with out any partner. who also falls in love with exotic dancer amber played by cassandra gava. at times mace could be very sypithetic cop. this film is recommended if you can find it. it is only on VHS. i hope one of these days it will be on DVD. this film was also never released in theatres. very independent. it is very hard to find in video stores.

I was in this as an extra

[furthurbus-86779 · 30 October 2021]

A long time ago, in a city in the south I answered an ad in Creative Loafing, and ended up as the "obnoxious onlooker" when the woman was hit by the car.

Fun time.

Unappealing cop movie

[lor_ · 20 April 2023]

My review was written in May 1987 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

Television star Ed Marinaro makes an unsuccessful transition to a leading role in a feature film via "Mace", an impoverished police thriller. Stillborn pic doesn't even play as exploitation fodder, despite its down and dirty theme.

Marinaro is an Atlanta cop nicknamed Mace, because he sprayed mace down a suspect's throat a while back, causing him to be demoted from homicide lieutenant to the vice squad. He's assigned to a case with partner Darrell Larson, involving the suspicious drug overdose deaths of a series of topless dancers (pic is so wimpy they rarely are topless despite endless strip sequences as filler).

Convoluted plot line (delivered mainly in gobs of verbal exposition) has the strippers connected somehow with security leaks, KGB agents, Bulgarian diplomats (pic's original title was "The Sofia Conspiracy") and blackmail. The FBI finally steps in and Mace is bounced off the case. He loses his badge when he continues any=way in order to help protect a stripper he has fallen for (Cassandra Gava a/k/a Gaviola) and protracted windup is a sick variant on Dirty Harry behavior.

This nonsense might have been diverting with an adequate budget, to deliver the globe-hopping thriller narrative replete with dateline/city i.d. Superimpositions. Instead, painfully underlit cheapie takes place entirely in Atlanta, with the cast endlessly discussing the international implications.

Marinaro is grumpy and unappealing, not an antihero, but a non-starter here. Rest of the principals are merely adequate and the strippers are not sexy enough by a country mile. Tech credits are weak.