In "Judgment Night," things start off innocently enough: four life-long friends who include the soft-spoken and straight-laced family man Frank Wyatt (Emilio Estevez), his womanizing best friend Mike Peterson (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), Frank's reckless and impulsive younger brother John Wyatt (Stephen Dorff), and the lecherous fast-talking lawyer Ray Cochran (Jeremy Piven) are heading out to downtown Chicago for a boys' night out at a boxing match, end up taking a wrong turn off the expressway to avoid a large traffic jam, and eventually wind up on the wrong side of town.
After stumbling upon a hit-and-run victim who later turns out to have been shot, the young Kid (Michael DeLorenzo) curiously refuses their help. "You guys don't know what you're messing with!" he warns, and before they know it he's dragged out of their decked-out camper into the street and promptly executed by Fallon (stand-up comedian Denis Leary, barely eschewing his trademark motormouth MTV-style rants), a psychotic neighborhood drug lord, and his three leering henchmen.
"Rule number-one," Fallon states before finally killing the young man, "Don't ever steal from me. Rule number-two: No witnesses," and that's when the gang turns their attentions toward Frank, Mike, John and Ray, who saw Fallon's cold-blooded execution of his thieving lieutenant.
From then on, "Judgment Night" finds Fallon and his goons (who include House of Pain lead rapper Everlast, credited here by his birthname of Erik Schrody) relentlessly pursuing the four hapless suburbanites through the decaying downtown Chicago city streets, vagrant-packed rail cars, apartment housing projects, the sewers, and even a supermarket as they attempt to survive a living nightmare through an urban hell.
At the time of its release on October 15, 1993, "Judgment Night" was really the latest in a loose chronology of violent urban action-thrillers that also included the previous year's "Trespass" (1992) that brought the relatively crime-free middle-class suburbs to the dangerously crime-ridden and poverty-stricken inner-city. This tension, of course, was highlighted by some of the real-world conflicts of the time, including the 1992 L. A. Riots that had been touched off by the acquittal of four police officers for the severe beating of a black motorist, the late Rodney King, and later the O. J. Simpson murder case.
But a social and class commentary, this film is not. What "Judgment Night" is, however, is one of the most thrilling, nail-biting, and genuinely suspenseful and action-packed films of the genre - even though it is a curiously overlooked gem of said genre. Stephen Hopkins ("A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child," "Predator 2") directs the picture, and he maintains a firm grasp on the action and the characters, leading to some genuinely tense moments including a scene in a rail car with some conniving hobos and a particularly chilling sequence in which the four friends seek refuge in an apartment building.
The four leads are all adequate - especially Emilio Estevez as Frank, who becomes the de-facto leader of the group since he has a family and is therefore the only one with anything to lose - but it's really Denis Leary who steals the show. As stated before, you still see much of his trademark ranting stand-up comedy routine, but it's the psychotically unhinged menace that he brings to his character that makes him one of the more frightening and overlooked portrayals of screen villainy that the genre is ever likely to see.
By the end of "Judgment Night," you'll think twice about taking another wrong turn off the expressway...
8/10
P. S.: The soundtrack to "Judgment Night" features 11 hit collaborations between well-known hard rock/heavy metal and rap artists of the time, including Helmet and House of Pain, Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul, Living Colour and Run-D. M. C., Slayer and Ice-T, Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T. R. I. B. E., Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill/Pearl Jam and Cypress Hill, and my personal favorite colab between Biohazard and Onyx (on the hard-hitting title track "Judgment Night"). The "Judgment Night" soundtrack was utterly ground-breaking at the time of its release due to these collaborations - though not altogether unsurprising since a few of these rock acts (Slayer, Living Colour, Faith No More, Biohazard) had veered toward rap before and some of these rap artists (Run-D. M. C., Ice-T, Cypress Hill, House of Pain, Onyx) had previously ventured into the rock arena - as it marked another major entry in the burgeoning rap-rock scene of the early 1990s, and the future development of so-called "nu-metal," which would dominate the metal and rock scene of the late '90s and early 2000s.
After stumbling upon a hit-and-run victim who later turns out to have been shot, the young Kid (Michael DeLorenzo) curiously refuses their help. "You guys don't know what you're messing with!" he warns, and before they know it he's dragged out of their decked-out camper into the street and promptly executed by Fallon (stand-up comedian Denis Leary, barely eschewing his trademark motormouth MTV-style rants), a psychotic neighborhood drug lord, and his three leering henchmen.
"Rule number-one," Fallon states before finally killing the young man, "Don't ever steal from me. Rule number-two: No witnesses," and that's when the gang turns their attentions toward Frank, Mike, John and Ray, who saw Fallon's cold-blooded execution of his thieving lieutenant.
From then on, "Judgment Night" finds Fallon and his goons (who include House of Pain lead rapper Everlast, credited here by his birthname of Erik Schrody) relentlessly pursuing the four hapless suburbanites through the decaying downtown Chicago city streets, vagrant-packed rail cars, apartment housing projects, the sewers, and even a supermarket as they attempt to survive a living nightmare through an urban hell.
At the time of its release on October 15, 1993, "Judgment Night" was really the latest in a loose chronology of violent urban action-thrillers that also included the previous year's "Trespass" (1992) that brought the relatively crime-free middle-class suburbs to the dangerously crime-ridden and poverty-stricken inner-city. This tension, of course, was highlighted by some of the real-world conflicts of the time, including the 1992 L. A. Riots that had been touched off by the acquittal of four police officers for the severe beating of a black motorist, the late Rodney King, and later the O. J. Simpson murder case.
But a social and class commentary, this film is not. What "Judgment Night" is, however, is one of the most thrilling, nail-biting, and genuinely suspenseful and action-packed films of the genre - even though it is a curiously overlooked gem of said genre. Stephen Hopkins ("A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child," "Predator 2") directs the picture, and he maintains a firm grasp on the action and the characters, leading to some genuinely tense moments including a scene in a rail car with some conniving hobos and a particularly chilling sequence in which the four friends seek refuge in an apartment building.
The four leads are all adequate - especially Emilio Estevez as Frank, who becomes the de-facto leader of the group since he has a family and is therefore the only one with anything to lose - but it's really Denis Leary who steals the show. As stated before, you still see much of his trademark ranting stand-up comedy routine, but it's the psychotically unhinged menace that he brings to his character that makes him one of the more frightening and overlooked portrayals of screen villainy that the genre is ever likely to see.
By the end of "Judgment Night," you'll think twice about taking another wrong turn off the expressway...
8/10
P. S.: The soundtrack to "Judgment Night" features 11 hit collaborations between well-known hard rock/heavy metal and rap artists of the time, including Helmet and House of Pain, Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul, Living Colour and Run-D. M. C., Slayer and Ice-T, Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T. R. I. B. E., Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill/Pearl Jam and Cypress Hill, and my personal favorite colab between Biohazard and Onyx (on the hard-hitting title track "Judgment Night"). The "Judgment Night" soundtrack was utterly ground-breaking at the time of its release due to these collaborations - though not altogether unsurprising since a few of these rock acts (Slayer, Living Colour, Faith No More, Biohazard) had veered toward rap before and some of these rap artists (Run-D. M. C., Ice-T, Cypress Hill, House of Pain, Onyx) had previously ventured into the rock arena - as it marked another major entry in the burgeoning rap-rock scene of the early 1990s, and the future development of so-called "nu-metal," which would dominate the metal and rock scene of the late '90s and early 2000s.