Another bottom-of-the-barrel Graze Z exploitation quickie from director Al Adamson, widely considered to be one of the worst directors of all time (even worse than Ed Wood, yes...at least Wood's films were somewhat entertaining). After a run of shoddy horror epics in the late '60s/early '70s, Adamson, ever one to cash in on a popular cinema trend to make a few bucks, turned his hand to the blaxploitation genre and ran off a couple of thrillers (DEATH DIMENSION is another of his cardboard productions, slightly - ever so slightly - more interesting due to the introduction of martial arts). This is a boringly sub-standard cops-and-robbers thriller yarn in which a black policeman goes after the people running a crime syndicate from a brothel which fronts as a hotel. There's more than that, but the plot is so convoluted and contrived that you can't be bothered to care. The only good thing is the funky music score that permeates through the action.
The main problem with the film is that the entire cast is so unappealing. The women are frequently naked (of course) which doesn't help and the men are just sweaty bad actors. Timothy Brown is the blaxploitation hero obviously modelled to be a Shaft clone, yet lacks the natural charisma his role demands - he just seems wooden and a clichéd macho-type (check out his hilariously dated - not to mention - Shaft-style love scene with a reporter). And Russ Tamblyn is just pathetic as a moustachioed villain, his weight blossoming and good looks vanished both at the same time (it's amazing that he enjoyed a second stage of his career in later life, even if it was in the hands of Fred Olen Ray).
The action highlights include a hostage-taker who accidentally blows himself and his hostage up when his bomb becomes trapped in a car door, a handful of boringly routine shoot-outs in the street where bad actors clutch their chests as they die, and a really unexciting car crash where a vehicle rolls down a cliff in slow-motion after some poor editing attempts to convince you it was nudged off the road by another car. Adamson does manage a few choice moments, such as an uncomfortable spot which displays the downside of gambling where a penniless broad bets her body to a group of greasy thugs and loses, but these are few and far between. Mostly it's just rip-off after rip-off after cliché, with that old hoary chestnut of a rooftop chase being dragged out of the closet yet again for another airing down.
The finale involves a police raid on the villains' headquarters, where the lesbian crime queen (!) is arrested and Tamblyn is impaled on a piece of scrap metal (the only moderately gory shot the film offers). Things still drag on though, to a showdown in the desert straight out of CHARLEY VARRICK, where the final bad guy (a Bobby Rhodes wannabe) attempts to escape via plane before it's blown out of the sky by an incredibly lucky - perhaps darned near impossible - shot from Brown's gun. One thing that did make me chuckle was the misleading box art for this video. If you check the top of the box carefully there's a drawing of an airliner exploding. The actual plane in the movie is a BI-PLANE! Yes, once again artistic license is to blame for making a film look more expensive than it really is. SYNDICATE VICE - a film only for those with acute insomnia and looking for a cure.
The main problem with the film is that the entire cast is so unappealing. The women are frequently naked (of course) which doesn't help and the men are just sweaty bad actors. Timothy Brown is the blaxploitation hero obviously modelled to be a Shaft clone, yet lacks the natural charisma his role demands - he just seems wooden and a clichéd macho-type (check out his hilariously dated - not to mention - Shaft-style love scene with a reporter). And Russ Tamblyn is just pathetic as a moustachioed villain, his weight blossoming and good looks vanished both at the same time (it's amazing that he enjoyed a second stage of his career in later life, even if it was in the hands of Fred Olen Ray).
The action highlights include a hostage-taker who accidentally blows himself and his hostage up when his bomb becomes trapped in a car door, a handful of boringly routine shoot-outs in the street where bad actors clutch their chests as they die, and a really unexciting car crash where a vehicle rolls down a cliff in slow-motion after some poor editing attempts to convince you it was nudged off the road by another car. Adamson does manage a few choice moments, such as an uncomfortable spot which displays the downside of gambling where a penniless broad bets her body to a group of greasy thugs and loses, but these are few and far between. Mostly it's just rip-off after rip-off after cliché, with that old hoary chestnut of a rooftop chase being dragged out of the closet yet again for another airing down.
The finale involves a police raid on the villains' headquarters, where the lesbian crime queen (!) is arrested and Tamblyn is impaled on a piece of scrap metal (the only moderately gory shot the film offers). Things still drag on though, to a showdown in the desert straight out of CHARLEY VARRICK, where the final bad guy (a Bobby Rhodes wannabe) attempts to escape via plane before it's blown out of the sky by an incredibly lucky - perhaps darned near impossible - shot from Brown's gun. One thing that did make me chuckle was the misleading box art for this video. If you check the top of the box carefully there's a drawing of an airliner exploding. The actual plane in the movie is a BI-PLANE! Yes, once again artistic license is to blame for making a film look more expensive than it really is. SYNDICATE VICE - a film only for those with acute insomnia and looking for a cure.