A reasonable Jamaican Dirty Harry
6 August 2002
Loose cannon cop Capone returns to his home town of Kingston to join a group of officers fighting organised crime in the area. On his first day he uncovers gun smuggling operation that may be connected with lead criminal Oney. However his old crew, led by Ratty, also are involved leading Capone to a choice between his job and his old crew.

This is basically a Jamaican Dirty Harry, with the plot addition of Capone coming up against his old crew. The film sets out the `tough' character in the first scene by having Capone waste some bad guys. After this he is tough for the rest of the film (`we run tings, tings don't run we') and he is a good lead character. The plot is straightforward enough and relies on action and tough talk to get by. The talk is good but the action is a little daft. Lots of diving about with guns and Capone never missing and never getting hit in true A-Team style. That said the story is still enjoyable.

The accents are not to thick to understand. I watched `The harder they come' the day before this, compared to that it was like the Queen's English! However there are some words and phrases that were lost on me still. The production is cheap – the early sets have the look of porn sets and the use of video rather than film also makes it look like a porn movie in terms of feel of the picture (not content!). This is a little distracting because it feels so cheap but if you get into it you can get past it.

Campbell is good and is always watchable here – but his character is a little too tough to be believable. Danvers is not very good – he just looks vexed most of the time and his character isn't developed enough to make the end of the film either impacting or involving. Reid is not pretty enough or given enough material to be a girlfriend character to this man who can have anyone (as established by the opening credits' hump!), but she is passable in the role. Most of the characters fall back on sucking their teeth and saying `bambaclot' (I've spelt it wrong!) – just being stereotypes.

Overall it's worth watching for the novelty value of it and it is quite enjoyable in a rough and ready type way. However if you want a cop thriller then there are plenty better than this.
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