Dead Bang | | Cast : | Don Johnson, Penelope Ann Miller | | Director : | John Frankenheimer | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby | | Released Date : | March 24, 1989 | | DVD Released Date : | June 01, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | January 18, 2005 | | Summary | Dirty Lethal Don | Content
 | I don't know what provoked Don Johnson to use his spare time from "Miami Vice" to take part in this fairly repellant film. He should have fired his agent. His Detective Jerry Beck character is one of the more unsavory protagonists to ever grace the silver screen. When Beck vomits on a perp you get the feeling that the only place "Dead Bang" has to go is up. The only thing that redeems Beck is that he is allegedly better than the cartoonish white-supremacists that he is tailing. The film also wastes the talents of Tim Reid as a sherriff, William Forsythe as an uptight FBI agent,Michael Jeter as a police psychiatrist who Beck intimidates, and Penelope Ann Miller whose sole purpose in the film is to share a perfunctory bedroom scene with Johnson. About the only thing that redeems this film is that director John Frankenheimer stages a fairly decent showdown scene with the supremacists in the catacombs of an Aryan church. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 16, 2004 | | Summary | YOU HAVEN'T A CLUE | Content
| I HAVE GIVEN UP WITH THE MAY I SAY CRIDITS ON THIS SITE. ONE, A MOVIE IS FOR ENJOYMENT. DON'T TEAR IT APART BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE PAN AND SCAN OR IT'S NOT BELIVEABLE. I HAVE THIS DVD ANDIT'S A GOOD MOVIE IF YOU FOLLOW THE STORY. IS IT THE ROCK, NO. IS IT IN THE LINE OF FIRE, NO, BUT IT BLOWS AWAY BANDITS WHICH I BOUGHT BECAUSE OF THIS SITE. I'M DONE LOOKING AT YOUR RATINGS BECAUSE MOST OF YOU DON'T HAVE LIVES AND NEED TO RATE MOVIES. XXX WAS TERRIFIC, MUDER AT 1600 WAS GREAT, THE FIRST PETER SELLERS MOVIE SUCKED AS DID OTHERS. ALL I'M SAYING IS, YOU THINK VANDAME IS A FIVE STAR, THAT STRIPES IS VERY FUNNY, THAT AIRPLANE IS FUNNY, AND THAT BANDITS IS GREAT. YOU SHOULD SEE SOMEONE BECAUSE YOU HAVE A PROBLEM AND PEOPLE WILL FOLLOW THESE RATINGS TO RENT OR TO BUY. DEAD BANG IS A FUNNY, ACTION PACKED MOVIE. A B MOVIE YUP, BUT TO ME GREAT ENTERTAINMENT. IT DOESNOT HAVE TO BE REAL LIFE OR PROVE ANYTHING TO BE ENTERTAINING. GET A LIFE PEOPLE!!!!!! |
| Rating | | | Date | August 14, 2004 | | Summary | "For one cop this isn't just a case, it's a war" | Content
| I bought this DVD at a sale at my local video store last week because a) It was cheap. b) I hadn't seen it before. c) Being a Frankenheimer movie I had moderate expectations that this movie would be halfway decent & d) The plot actually sounded quite interesting. John Frankenheimer has made some very good movies throughout his long career as a Hollywood director among them THE TRAIN (1964) SECONDS (1966) BLACK SUNDAY (1977) & RONIN (1998). He's also made movies where "awful" seems too nice a word to describe them. Among these of course we have PROPHECY(1979) ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1996) & in between those two there is Frankenheimer's 1989 movie DEAD BANG.
Don Johnson plays Detective Jerry Beck, a down and out cop who refuses to play by the rules and is disliked by his peers, whose latest case involves him running up against a gang of white supremacists. The movies script by Robert Foster is basically a blueprint of cop movie clichés. There's one minor problem: Jerry Beck is NOT a fictional character. In fact, the real Jerry Beck receives a co-credit for the story.
The movie is despite being barely 100 minutes long seems drawn out and boring. It also goes some way towards showing why Johnson couldn't make the leap from TV to the big screen successfully: For cryin' out loud when you accept scripts like DEAD BANG and HARLEY DAVIDSON AND THE MARLBORO MAN (Which was a reasonable sized hit on video. God knows why.), you're literally ASKING to be sent up Poo Creek without a paddle career-wise, aren't you? Getting jiggy with Melanie Griffith won't win you good parts (though Charles Fleming`s book "High Concept: Don Simpson And The Hollywood Culture Of Excess" would have us believe otherwise.) However as with all bad movies there are a couple of standout scenes: the scene where Beck rubs a Woody Allen look-alike the wrong way and hurts his feelings & of course the bravura scene where Johnson is shown throwing up on a suspect. You wouldn't see The Rock or Vin Diesel doing that!
DEAD BANG sticks out like a sore thumb in my DVD collection along with other anomalies (just my opinion) like TRUE STORIES and STAR 80. Movies that I found had interesting ideas but dullness and/or pretension and/or poor execution left me with stinging eyeballs and the formation of thick cobwebs in the dense black space where my brain should be. But having said that the movie isn't complete garbage but apart from the aforementioned scenes it doesn't add anything new to the genre that makes it stand out from the pack.
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| Rating | | | Date | February 20, 2004 | | Summary | No new ground covered here | Content
| In a constant effort to expand my collection of action flicks, I decided to give 'Dead-Bang' a view. While it ain't a half-bad "lone-wolf-cop-on-a-mission-and-God-help-anybody-who-gets-in-his-way" type movie, the sheer volume of the usual clichés, stereotypical supporting characters, and hackneyed situations borders on the ludicrous. For a start, you've got Don Johnson playing Beck, a divorced alcoholic cop who prefers to work alone and doesn't like to go by the rules. Sounds like a familiar character (or combo of characters) don't it? But wait, there's more: we can't forget the usual folks the lone wolf cop who doesn't like to play by the rules will hafta deal with on his way to gettin' the job done, right? This lineup of familiar anal-retentives include: - An annoyingly buttoned-down & arrogant FBI agent (played a bit too stiffly by William Forsythe) who goes by-the-book at all times and tries to grab all the glory for Beck's hard work. - A ludicrously complacent small-town sheriff who thinks he can handle the situation in spite of Beck's insistence that he's overmatched. Needless to say, the yokel suddenly and almost fatally gets his comeuppance when he and several deputies get caught in the bad guys' ambush. - A police captain who is on one hand sympathetic towards Beck's plight, but on the other hand is also concerned for the department's image and wants his underling to tone things down. - A super-geeky & bureaucratic police shrink called in to evaluate the Beck's mental state, who is coerced by Beck into giving him a favorable evaluation. Then there's the band of white supremacists Beck is after, which might lead one to believe the movie will actually tackle the topic of organized racism in a meaningful way... NOT! Throw in the obligatory boink scene, foot-chase scene, and a slight twist at the climax that wasn't all that twisty, and you've got the cop-cinema equivalent of acute déjà vu. Though I must admit Beck's method of puking-on-a-perp method of questioning is a fairly novel if disgusting addition to the action. If nothing more, 'Dead-Bang' is worth a rent if you've already checked out every other semi-decent tape on your local Hollywood Video's Action/Adventure shelf... 'Late |
| Rating | | | Date | July 13, 2003 | | Summary | DECENT ACTION FLICK | Content
| YOU REALLY HAVE TO SEE A MOVIE LIKE THIS TO GET A GLIMPSE OF WHAT SOME 'REAL COPS' GO THROUGH. ALTHOUGH DRAMATIZED, THE BASIS FOR THIS FLICK IS THE REAL LIFE EXPLIOTS OF L.A. COUNTY SHERIFFS HOMICE INVESTIGATOR JEROME BECK. IT IS A RIVETING CHARACTER STUDY OF WHAT THIS JOB CAN DO TO A MAN, HIS MARRIAGE, HIS KIDS AND HIS PSYCHE. DON JOHNSON DOES AN EXCELLENT JOB OF PLAYING THE MORBID, BURNT OUT COP ON THE EDGE. HE'S DRINKING EXCESSIVELY, GOING THROUGH A BITTER CUSTODY BATTLE WITH HIS EX, LIVING IN A DUMP AND BREAKING EVERY RULE IN THE BOOK TO GET A NEO-NAZI MANIAC WHO KILLED A DISTANT POLICE CAMPADRE. THE ONE OBVIOUS FLAW IN THE FILM IS THE TOTALLY PROCEDURALLY INCORRECT WAY THE VICTIM OFFICER APPROACHES AN ARMED ROBBERY/MURDER SUSPECT. ANY REAL COP WATCHING THE SHOW WILL BE TEMPTED TO HIT THE 'STOP' BUTTON ON THE V.C.R. THERE. BUT IF YOU CAN WADE PAST THIS NONSESICAL SCENE ITS A PRETTY DECENT FLICK. JOHNSON SHINES IN A MEMORABLE SCENE WHERE HE IS ORDERED TO UNDERGO PSYCHOLOGICAL COUSELING DUE TO HIS ERRATIC BEHAVIOUR.
AS THE PENCIL NECKED ANALYST'S EGO IS STEPPED ON HE PREPARES TO END THE SESSION 'RUSHING TO JUDGEMENT' ON THE VETERAN OFFICER'S
MENTAL STATE. JOHNSON'S 'BECK' USES SOME PURSUASIVE PSYCO BABBLE OF HIS OWN TO DETER THE COUSELOR FROM ENDING HIS 'BECKS' CAREER.
IT IS A GREAT SCENE AND THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE FILM. THE THING THAT MAKES THIS CHARACTER DIFFERENT FROM 'SONNY CROCKETT' OR 'NASH BRIDGES' IS THE REALNESS OF THE GUY. HE DOESNT SPOUT POLITICALLY CORRECT ONE LINERS. HE DOESNT WEAR FASHIONS THAT NO REAL COP COULD EVER AFFORD, AND HIS LIFE IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF GLAMOROUS. CRITICS AND AUDIENCES ALIKE WERE QUICK TO LAMBAST THIS MOVIE WHEN IT PREMEIRED IN EARLY 1989 BECAUSE IT DOESNT HAVE A SUPER HERO MAIN CHARACTER WHO JUMPS OFF OF BUILDINGS OR DRIVES A FLASHY CAR. AND THAT IS JUST THE REASON IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRAISED. IT HAD THE GUTS TO BE DIFFERENT! THE ACTION SCENES ARE WELL ORCHESTRATED WITH JOHNSON ACTUALLY LOOKING 'PUMPED' AS HE ATTEMPTS TO SURVIVE THE SHOOTOUTS. NO, 'DEAD BANG' IS NOT A TIMELESS CLASSIC, BUT IT WORKS WELL AS A DRAMATIC ACTION PLAY WITH A FLAWED BUT VERY INTERESTING PROTAGONIST. |
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