the audience applauded

Brilliant and touching

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

There's a general rule of thumb that says the newer the Umberto Lenzi film, the worse it will be. Well, that holds true with COP TARGET, Lenzi's 1990 crime thriller that lacks the panache and style of his gritty, on-the-street '70s polizia flicks. COP TARGET is a tired detective outing that copies a million American flicks without ever providing any originality or verve of its own. Robert Ginty, once a minor star in THE EXTERMINATOR, now looks old, tired and pudgy, and the attempts at humour that Lenzi repeatedly tries with his world-weary detective character fall flat every time. It doesn't help that Ginty's co-star is equally aged and unattractive; Barbara Bingham is ten years too old for the part and her abrasive heroine quickly gets on the nerves.Not that the film is particularly poorly made; indeed, the direction is often adequate and Lenzi shoots some nice locations. Ginty isn't exactly a bad leading actor, just a little dull in places, although he knows how to hold his pistol in the action sequences. Speaking of pistols, you've gotta love the sequence where Ginty takes a gun carefully to pieces and cleans it with salad dressing (!); this whole thing has been copied from THE EXTERMINATOR, and you get the impression that Lenzi was desperate for viewers to recall that superior exploitation movie.This movie, meanwhile, is almost plot less, and totally devoid of suspense. Although there are some car chases and exploding vehicles, it never gets the pulse beating. There are one or two cheesy action sequences to be enjoyed, for sure, the best of which is the bit where a drug gang storms a pleasure beach, attacking lifeguards with machine guns and engaging in gun battles and fist fights with our ageing action hero. The only other name in the cast is exploitation stalwart Charles Napier, playing a corrupt American official who gets his just desserts come the movie's laboured climax. COP TARGET is a pretty boring movie with only a few elements of interest for the die-hard genre fan. But I doubt anyone will bother watching this – especially when there are so many better films out there.

After having felt a bit ill for the last couple of days,I decided to re- start my movie viewing with a bang!,by watching Umberto Lenzi's last ever Italian Crime film.The plot:Spotting a mugger attempting to steal a woman's handbag,undercover cop Farley Wood decides to go and save the woman.Trying his best to help,the mugger ends up getting away,when the woman (who is really a transvestite) starts to hit Farley.Originally planning to take the transvestite back to the station to be charged,Wood eventually decides to give a "second chance" and frees the transvestite.Reaching the police station,Farley is quickly given orders by the police captain that he is being sent on a secret mission to San Cristobal as a hired body guard for the widow and child of a deceased US delegate who is being honoured for everything he did in helping the country's war on drugs,which ended up costing him his life.Arriving in San Cristolbal,Farley quickly discovers that the country's gangsters are determined to make the late delegate's family pay,for everything that their late husband/father caused them to lose.View on the film:For the screenplay of the film,writer Ralmondo Del Balzo scatter's a number of terrific quirky moments, (such as Wood fighting with a transvestite,to de-bugging phones) which help to give the film a nice pleasant feel,which is able to make up for a number of flaws in the directing that sadly ruin the movie.With having become a big fan of Lenzi's energetic,scatter-shot directing style,I was extremely sad to see,that for his final Italian Crime film,all of the energy which Lenzi used to display,sadly seems to have completely burnt out.Despite Balzo's screenplay offering some wild quirky moments,Lenzi disappointingly shoots all of the film in a very plodding,stuck in cement style,which causes the movie to go out on a dying whimper,instead of the explosive bang that it so deserved.

I watched this, and I couldn't escape the bad bad ff key sometimes. Slow introduction, bad motivation, characters changing without any explanation, Ginty looking suspicious, a cat-feeding machine is featured, Napier is wasted, Franco Fantasia - good to see he's well and alive saves a point - what is this about? An action film without action, a suspense movie without a clue. A mess.

This film is actually quite good. Robert Ginty stars as a cop who is hired to escort a rich woman and her kid to an awards ceremony on the tropical island of San Cristobal (this film was actually shot in Miami and Santo Domingo). While there, her daughter is kidnapped by a group of seedy South American thugs, and is held for ransom. Ginty begins to get official "orders" to leave the case to the FBI, but he decides to do his own investigating. He finds that the crime may have had political motivations. This film reminds me of something you'd see on late-night TV. Although it in no way compares to Lenzi's earlier works, it stands up well, and is quite enjoyable to watch.