Cheapo DVD Review: Gladiator Cop (1995)

Starring:

Lorenzo Lamas 

James Hong

Frank Anderson

George Touliatos

Christopher Lee Clements

Claire Stansfield

and

Rather a lot of men with big muscles

  A legendary sword once owned by Alexander the Great is stolen from a museum by persons unknown.

 Meanwhile burly men are turning up dead with wounds apparently made by a really, big sharp knife.

 Andrew Garrett, a cop with certain...abilities and really nice hair, finds himself pursuing the sword into the shadowy world of underground death matches.

  And does the sword have anything to do with the really vivid dreams he's been having lately...

  This is yet another movie about underground fighting, although in this case the fighters are allowed to use axes and swords. You have to wonder how they recruit new fighters. More to the point, how do they stop them from showing up, taking one look at the enormous guy with a BFS* on the opposite side and saying "Bollocks to this."
  The first thing you notice about "Gladiator Cop" is that the whole thing plays like a pilot for a tv series that never got made. 
 Well actually the first thing you notice is that star Lorenzo Lamas got his hair done by Kevin Sorbo's old hairdresser.

 Not when he's doing cop stuff obviously. No, he wears it tied back in a ponytail and has one of those curiously stylish leather jackets, a look that screams "Undercover maverick cop"

 Mind you, I'm not sure if  Andrew Garrett is  undercover or it's just the police department is kinda embarrassed to have him around. He has psychometric powers, you see. what that means is, he touches a dead guy, gets a flash of how they died and then falls over a lot. 

 You mean the dead bloke that came in with two small stab wounds died from... being stabbed by something small and sharp? Wow. Never would have guessed.

 The second thing you notice...

Wait, hang on.

The third thing you notice is how disjointed "Gladiator Cop" feels. While Andrew Garrett is poking stiffs, jotting down his dreams and conducting a half-hearted romance with one of the Museum staff, the film puts more focus on wannabe Player Chris Kilos and male-model turned gladiator Jodar. 

 So while Andrew is trying to find the sword, Kilos and Jodar are trying to fight their way to a big money showdown as per every Underground Fight movie ever.

 ( Personally I'd have sold the damn thing.  Much less chance of getting chopped into bits that way.)

 Anyway, stuff happens, large men fight each other, love-interest Julie does little useful or relevant, James Hong shows up to spout cryptic bollocks  and  Gladiator Cop moves on from scene to scene without really establishing any kind of logical flow. It's like the editor accidentally trimmed out half the scenes where stuff gets explained.
  I found myself reaching for a book halfway through and tuning back in whenever the fights kicked in. There's a fair few of them, mostly involving guys who based their training regime on the 80s  WWF plan. So steroids, more steroids and dubious clothing, then.

 Andrew finally gets undercover as a Zorroesque mystery fighter, has a couple of fights, Kilos and Jodar get their comeuppance and I looked up from my book just long enough to hit the eject button.

 I did not consider this movie a valid or entertaining use of my time.  It wasn't even cheesy enough to be fun.

How much did I pay for this? 50p
Was it worth it? Well I got a blog entry out of it, I suppose. But once I'm done writing this piece, "Gladiator Cop" goes straight onto the Bottom Shelf of Shame, along with all the other stuff I will never, ever dig out again.

(In case you are wondering: BFS = Big F***ing Sword)
 Time for some screenshots:

Kilos - Museum boss gone rogue. 

Seriously, if you wanted to get rich, why didn't you just embezzle the money instead?

Jodar celebrates after killing a large black man with enormous muscles. 

 Julie asks Andrew "How come your hair is nicer than mine?"

While Andrew wants to know what Julie actually does in this film.

Kilos decides to take his new lady-friend out for an evening's entertainment.

By "Ladyfriend" I mean mid-range callgirl

And by "entertainment" he means, watching sweaty steroidmonsters fight to the death.

It doesn't occur to him that she might have wanted to go to a nice cocktail party instead.

I can't think of a caption to do this pic justice. 

Jodar fights a bald man in a carpark.

Considering that the audience all seem to be quite well off, you'd think

they'd maybe insist that these fights got held somewhere nicer.

Somewhere with toilets, maybe.

 

This woman shows up in a few scenes so you'd 

 expect her to be relevant in some way.

Nope.  

James Hong wonders why it's the 1990s and he's still 

having to do this stereotypical Fu Manchu/Triad shit.

Here's that blonde again, making the most of her last-ever scene in this film.

Jodar finally appears in the same scene as Andrew.

You know, the guy who's supposed to be the hero?  

 And this man is either really angry or has

the most horrendous case of constipation.

That's all folks.