SAMURAI COP (1991) ***
An outtake is defined as “a scene or sequence filmed or recorded for a movie or program but not included in the final version.”
Blown lines and stunts, we all know the routine by now.
Hal Needham and Jackie Chan may have made outtakes for the end credits a cinematic institution, but Iranian “jack of all trades and master of none” Amir Shervan (1929-2006) directed SAMURAI COP, a feature movie solely comprised of outtakes.
Shervan trumped such legendary figures as Dwain Esper, William “One Shot” Beaudine, Bert I. Gordon, Bill Rebane, Ray Dennis Steckler, and even Ed Wood in absolute sheer incompetence.
Like a select few bad movies, SAMURAI COP is so, so, so bad in so, so, so many marvelous ways that it passes all the way through bad into good. It belongs filed next to Efren C. Pinon’s THE KILLING OF SATAN and Claudio Fragasso’s TROLL 2.
— Mathew Karedas, a.k.a. Matt Hannon, stars as Joe Marshall. Most people, though, just call him “Samurai Cop.” Joe must be the least convincing samurai in all history, cinematic and otherwise. For one, Joe’s entire look screams more Fabio and Kato Kaelin than, let’s say, Toshiro Mifune and his most dangerous weapon brandished is that damn speedo he spends what feels like the entire second half of the movie in. Anyway, for somebody allegedly well-versed in the Japanese vernacular, he sure does struggle pronouncing the name “Fujiyama.” When asked by his partner Frank Washington (Mark Frazer) what “katana” means, Joe snaps back “It means Japanese sword.” You don’t say, you don’t say.
— Samurai Cop arguably spends more time being a ladies man than anything else. No, seriously, he beds three, er, two women and he even blatantly talks about the beauty of another woman in the presence of his lover. Smooth, real smooth. Late in the 96-minute spread, he tells his future conquest, “Let’s just say … I can read eyes.” I wish that you couldn’t read dialogue.
Here’s a dialogue exchange from the Planet-X:
Nurse: Do you like what you see?
Joe Marshall: I love what I see.
N: Would you like to touch what you see?
JM: Yes. Yes, I would.
N: Would you like to go out with me?
JM: Uh, yes I would.
N: Would you like to fuck me?
JM: Bingo.
N: Well, then let’s see what you’ve got …
[Nurse investigates Joe’s bulge]
N: Doesn’t interest me. Nothing there.
JM: Nothing there? Just exactly what would interest you, something the size of a jumbo jet?
N: Have you been circumcised?
JM: Yeah, I have, why?
N: Your doctor must have cut a large portion off.
JM: No, uh, he was a, he was a good doctor.
N: Good doctors make mistakes too, that’s why they have insurance.
JM: Hey … don’t worry. I got enough. It’s big.
N: I want bigger.
[Nurse walks away]
I doubt that any screen lothario has ever partaken in dialogue that bad and the sound that we just heard is Rudolph Valentino saying “Thank you” for having made only silent movies.
That dialogue plays like a combination of a porno movie and “Dick and Jane” (most of the rest of the movie belongs to knocking off LETHAL WEAPON) and it belongs alongside the SHARK ATTACK 3: MEGALODON interchange in the anals, er, annals of cinematic history:
Cataline Stone: I’m exhausted.
Ben Carpenter: Yeah, me too. But you know I’m really wired. What do you say … I take you home and eat your pussy.
Boy, that’s just about as great as the whole “Fini can water you” debacle from YES, GIORGIO.
— Lead actor Matt Hannon thought he was done with the picture and got himself a short haircut. Several months later, Shervan looked up Hannon and informed him they were going to reshoot scenes. Unfortunately, Hannon still had short hair. I say unfortunately because Hannon wears one of the least convincing wigs ever made during SAMURAI COP. It does not help that Hannon’s wig flies off during a late fight scene and the actor also displays his obvious displeasure having to wear his wig. Yeah, it’s that bad.
— The chase scenes alternate between moving incredibly slow (nothing like slow-moving cars …) and being artificially sped up (… except for cars that zip along unnaturally). Yes, there are times when the action in SAMURAI COP plays like a silent film projected at the wrong speed.
— Not sure that I want to spend that much more time and space on SAMURAI COP, because I don’t want to risk writing a dissertation. Yes, over 750 words feels like I have been writing on this movie for a long time. However, there’s so many more things wrong but right about SAMURAI COP that we could be here all day, ironic for a movie that lasts a meager 96 minutes. Just imagine SAMURAI COP at GONE WITH THE WIND length.
— In a review long ago, I wrote that the 1979 Chuck Norris action vehicle A FORCE OF ONE combines a standard issue cops and criminals plot acted out by a good cast with martial arts and a “very subtle” anti-drug message that plays like one of those infamous 1980s TV commercials, only featuring roundhouse kicks.
On that note, we can end this review with a public service announcement from SAMURAI COP: “Now I’m telling these son-of-a-bitches that we respect the Japanese of this country, who are honest businessmen. And yeah, this is the land of opportunity for legitimate business, not for death merchants who distribute drugs to our children through schools and on the streets. Now I’m telling these motherfuckers that if they continue killing our children to make their precious millions that they deposit in their secret Swiss bank accounts, counselor, before your lawsuit even gets off the court clerk’s desk, I’ll have their stinking bodies in garbage bags and ship them back to Japan for fertilizer.”
Beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and it makes me want to pop a top on an ice cold one and blast Alice Cooper’s “I Love America.”
Attack of the Killer Librarian 