Blood On The Badge (1992)

Blood On The Badge (1992)- * * *

Directed by: Bret McCormick

Starring: Joe Estevez, David Harrod, Todd A. Everett, and Rocky Patterson 

When a Libyan terrorist group called the Hand of God are running around killing politicians, detectives Neil Farrow (Harrod) and Bill Marshall (Everett) are on the case. Captain Burton (Estevez) is constantly demanding answers from them, and after Marshall ends up in a coma, Farrow goes rogue – and also goes to Texas – to find the perpetrators. While somewhat of a fish out of water in the small town of Morgan County, Texas, Farrow has a spirit guide – his comatose partner Marshall himself! Dressed in a white T-shirt and bathed in white light even though he’s not dead, he gives Farrow cryptic clues as to what to do next. Doubtlessly it’s because of this intervention that Farrow comes across local powermad good ol’ boy Milo Truscott (Patterson) and his gang of nogoodniks. After traveling to the local “survival camp” and being mercilessly mocked and ridiculed by the local doomsday preppers, Farrow decides enough is enough and takes the law into his own hands to unravel the mystery. But will there be BLOOD ON THE BADGE?


Shot the same year as Armed For Action (1992) and featuring almost the exact same cast and crew, Blood On The Badge is more low-budget, Texas-set, Joe Estevez-infused DTV wonderment. Out of the two, we prefer Armed For Action, mainly because that has a higher mullet-and-Gatling-gun ratio, but it’s probably a matter of taste.


David Harrod returns as the hunky Himbo hero. His favorite outfit is what appears to be a homemade New York Yankees T-shirt tucked into acid washed jeans with a black belt. When he’s not wearing that, he likes to lounge around in a towel, showing off his ultra-manly Woody Woodpecker tattoo. He’s so much of a Himbo, he makes Dan Cortese look like William F. Buckley. Naturally, the ladies can’t get enough of him, and that includes Monique Detraz of The Dangerous (1995) fame. While the movie as a whole suffers from pacing issues, Joe Estevez appears right on time.


Rocky Patterson also returns, along with everyone else, from Armed For Action. In that outing he strongly resembled Joe Piscopo. In this movie, he strongly resembles Greg Kinnear. The man is a true chameleon. While his name here is Truscott, it sounds like everyone is calling him “Triscuit”. Thankfully, this movie isn’t quite as dry as his namesake cracker. Speaking of which, Truscott is a racist bigot who spews racial slurs constantly. That and the sax on the soundtrack are the hallmarks of a type of film which is not made anymore. While in many respects, Blood on the Badge is a relic of its day, it is actually quite ahead of its time. The plot revolves around Islamic terrorists, and there is a subplot that involves the Israeli ambassador. They should re-release this back into theaters today.



While there are a healthy amount of funny lines and silly situations, the plot is slow going. There is a machine gun shootout in a warehouse, and even an exploding helicopter, so in that respect it’s pure AIP. It all ends on a classic freeze frame and under the closing credits are wedding pictures. You’ve gotta hand it to director McCormick and his band of regulars. It may be rough around the edges, but, darn it, he made these movies and released them into video stores. You can tell plenty of effort was put into making them as good as possible under very, very limiting circumstances. It’s probably important to keep that in mind while watching.


In the end, if you liked Armed For Action, or even One Man War (1990), and you appreciate that down-home style, you’ll more than likely enjoy Blood On the Badge. If not, you probably won’t, though it is just entertaining enough to satisfy VHS junkies who are familiar with this type of material.


Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty

Armed For Action (1992)

Armed For Action (1992)- * * *

Directed by: Bret McCormick

Starring: Joe Estevez, J.Scott Guy, David Harrod, Shane Boldin, Jack Gould, and Rocky Patterson

Alex (Guy) and his cousin Jake (Boldin) are two fun-loving cousins who are just livin’ their lives in the sleepy, rural town of Poolville, Texas. Because most of the town has vacated because it’s hunting season, the two good ol’ boys can feel free to indulge their passions of drinking, skirt-chasing, and gun collecting. The latter is going to come in very handy, however, as trouble comes to town in the form of a man named West (Estevez). West brings his underlings to Poolville because that’s where a mafia hitman named David Montel (Patterson) will be. He’s a prisoner being transported cross-country by a cop-with-an-attitude named Sgt. Phil Towers (Harrod). Once West and his goons start their onslaught in pursuit of Montel, the unlikely allies of Alex, Jake, Montel, Towers, and local barmaid Sarah (Murphy) all have to team up to fight them in a firefight to the finish. Luckily, they’re ARMED FOR ACTION…but so are the baddies! Who will be the saviors of Poolville, Texas?


Both Alex and Jake have awesome hair. They have to be cousins because awesome hair must run in their bloodline. Alex’s overgrown curly mullet is extremely impressive, though Phil Towers, the Zack Morris-esque policeman has great hair too, and he’s not related to the boys, as far as we know. Jake rivals him with his Cody-era Sasha Mitchell look.


Okay, now that that’s out of our system, let’s proceed. Armed For Action seems to be something of a “forgotten” movie, and one of the least-talked about AIP releases. Hopefully, this review will help to change that, as not only is it a more-than-respectable outing, it’s actually quite impressive what director McCormick and the gang were able to do with such a low budget. Despite some of the almost-prerequisite dumb moments and low-budget pitfalls, this tale of innocent locals caught in a city-versus-country crossfire is the type of movie Hollywood used to make – and still makes today but with an exponentially higher budget, if we just look at The Last Stand (2013). Even David Heavener tried his hand with something similar, Prime Target (1991). While we appreciated the movie’s lineage – it’s essentially an old-style Western – we could have done without the bathroom humor (a pet peeve of ours).

When you watch Armed For Action, you enter a rural world where the hometown bar appears to be someone’s house, the Sheriff (Gould) is the only law enforcement in town and he operates out of the General Store, and at the local restaurant you can get something called a smoked bologna sandwich. Strange as it is to say, 1992 was a simpler time, and when Joe Estevez (who puts in a pretty wild-eyed performance) and his goons show up, you care what happens to the townsfolk. AFA (as we call it) actually takes the time for character development, which we applaud wholeheartedly. So many movies of this type just skip that. For that reason alone, this small, modest movie is worth checking out.

And because Montel looks like Joe Piscopo. That would be our mafia hitman, not Montel Williams. Speaking of lookalikes, West’s main two goons look like Gary Busey and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. There are a lot of other funny-looking goons as well, but those were our personal favorites. Would that the real guys appeared in an AIP movie together. Well, this is as close as we’ll get. We’ll take it. According to the credits, the weapons were by Weaponmasters, and the stunts were by Stuntmasters. Could they be the same people? The soundtrack was not done by The Beatmasters, but it was done by one Ron Di Iulio, who contributes some catchy countryfied guitar licks to the ensuing action odyssey.

Even though many people get shot and\or blown up, Armed For Action represents a filmmaking era that is almost quaint by today's standards. Efforts - and they truly were efforts - like this should be recognized. Thanks to AIP and now Amazon Prime, they can be.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett