Seeing Lou Diamond Phillips on the Conan show reminded me of just how likeable the man was and is. La Bamba was his highest profile moment and The First Power his best film, but he was a reliable b movie go-to guy for a long time.
I went straight to Netflix and found Malevolent, a competent but occasionally muddled action drama that fails to do anything more than prove LDP has still got it – or at least did ten years ago when this was made.
Here Phillips is Jack Lucas, a seen it all decorated cop who meets an especially chatty and disarmingly gregarious young man in a bar. As he rises to leave Jack suspects he may have been drugged. He awakens later unharmed, but without his badge and gun.
The first mistake Jack makes is not telling anyone of the event, which in itself would seem a strange decision, what with him being a cop and all…
In the ensuing days murders are committed, with Jack’s gun and other items suggesting his involvement. With his own department and internal affairs paying special scrutiny, Jack ignores all help and starts his own investigation. This leads him to the doorstep of a stripper / hooker named Jessica (Kari Wuhrer), a young woman with her own reasons for not wanting to be involved in any way.
As the bad guy pokes and prods at Jack from all around, Jack makes an endless stream of awful decisions that only make his position weaker and the case against him more indefensible. This is encapsulated by one line from his female partner “You are not helping yourself any”, perhaps the understatement of many years.
Then, in a sign which illustrates the lowest of low budget that the film was made with, the film ends in a chase sequence lifted directly from Steven Seagal’s Marked for Death; and I don’t mean copied, I mean they directly use footage from that film.
One of the oddest things I can recall on film ends a film that I will not remember in a week.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. Lou Diamond Phillips might remain a charismatic leading man, but he can’t turn shit into lemonade.
