Customer Reviews

Street Knight [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When most people talk about Jeff Speakman (especially Kenpo Karate practitioners or martial arts enthusiasts), they say Perfect Weapon was his best movie. If any of Jeff's movies are nearly as popular as Perfect Weapon, it would have to be Street Knight. I viewed Street Knight after seeing Perfect Weapon, and I was disappointed. This film does have some good acting from Jeff Speakman and Christopher Neame. Some other actors have their moments, but they are usually few and far between. Jeff begins the film with one of the best performances of his career, but every now and then he slips into this sincere emotionless character. The main reason that people see Jeff Speakman is for his Kenpo Karate skills. Sadly, Jeff does not get to perform in this film to the same extent or expertise that he showed audiences in Perfect Weapon. However, Jeff does get some good fight scenes. The best ones are the last three during the second half of the film. I have not seen many of Jeff's films, but this is certainly better than most of the ones I have seen. It's no Perfect Weapon, but it's good.

Jeff Speakman again shows his expert skill in martial arts. He is so talented, I wish he had more movies out. I have all of his videos; but Street Knight, Deadly Outbreak, and The Perfect Weapon are his best! I just love him and his style of fighting. I take martial arts but am no where near his level.This movie is also for men and women. It has action, romance,sensitivity, and speaks out against gang violence. Way to go Jeff!

I respect Jeff Speakman for his ability to use fast multiple combinations one after another better than any other TV martial artist. He is a world class Kempo champion and sometimes his training really shows.

This movie represents his fast combination style at its bare minimum. He does perform combinations but nothing compared to his shown potential. In this movie he is usually not a super human fighter like most action heroes. After the first few fights, which were to show that he could fight, everyone else in the movie became skilled fighters whose training was only slightly inferior to Jeff Speakmans character.

The combos in this one mostly look fake and I think the movie was just too slow. It would have worked better if he could have dominated the fights more.

Actually Jeff Speakman studies a form of Martial Arts called American Kenpo that was founded by Mr Ed Parker. My son and I both study American Kenpo and love to pick out the diffferent techniques that Jeff Speakman's using in the film. Ed Parker is responsible for directing all the fight scenes in the film. Ed Parker is responsible for teaching such notables as Jeff Speakman, Elvis Presley, and Blake Edwards to name a few. He also was the one that is responsible for introducing Bruce Lee to the Hollywood jet set and getting him started in films.

This was one of the greatest films I have ever seen. I am despondent that this great movie us virtually unknown by everyone on planet earth. Not only is the plot so stupid it's entertaining-Tom Magee, the 1982 world powerlifting champion has a bit role in the film! A brief scene of Magee doing curls with his shirt off followed by a kung fu sequence was really choice. However, this movie was so entertaining I could watch it a million times without losing taste..... the stupid plot is about a war between a Latino L.A. gang and a black L.A. gang. When martial arts hero-cop Jeff Speakman tries to play peacemaker between the gangs, a group of bad guys decide to dress up like members of the latinos and kill members of the black gang. FOR NO REASON! Maybe if they had a reason to do this, it would make sense, but they do it for fun (I guess) which makes the movie all the more entertaining. At one point, the bad guys decide to dress up as peace maker Jeff Speakman and kill the leader of the black gang! Haha. This movie gets 5 stars baby! It is a visually stunning flick. Oh, and by the way, I LOVE YOU LEEN!!!!!

I'm going to review Street Knight I liked this movie Mark DiSalle was involved with the movie but the directing was handled by by Albert Magnoli it he directed Purple Rain don't know how that gets you to direct a action crime thriller but he does a good job. It stars Jeff Speakman as Jake Barrett Christopher Neame as James Franklin Jenifer Gatti as Rebecca Bernie Casey as Raymond & Richard Coca as Carlos. Plot is Jake Barrett is an ex cop who is now a mechanic & this boy goes missing a lady named Rebecca seeks his help out to find her younger brother Jake doesn't want to cause 3 years ago during a bank robbery a little girl was killed when he was trying to talk this guy out of it that's why he quit being a cop. Los Angels is in the middle of gang warfare & the rival gangs are under this truce & this other group led by a crime boss named James Franklin has members of a gang I think called The Lords killed to make it look like this broke the truce this boy driving the car Carlos he escapes since he's a witness Franklin wants him killed. Eventually Jake agrees to help Rebecca. Franklin finds out about it & tries to have Jake killed. He owns 2 of Franklin's goons & has his friend Raymond who works in forensics for the police. Jake's phone has been tapped by & when Rsymond has all the info on he calls Jake Franklin's group shows up where Rsymond & Jake are going to meet & Raymond is gunned down. Jake finds Carlos & gets him to safety Franklin kidnaps Rebecca which leads to the final confertation at the Train Depot. I hope my explanation of the plot was good. Jeff Speakman he did a good job Jenifer Gatti was fine. Christopher Neame did fine as the villain he didn't ham it up like the villains in Edge Of Darkness did.Yeah this was better than Edge Of Darkness. Richard Coca was ok. Bernie Casey was fine for time he was given I think he should've lived though. This movie is what Walker Texas Ranger Trial By Fire should've been. This was the last film released by Cannon films which they did good with making small budget movies look big budget. If this wasn't released theatrically that was a shame cause I look at movies like Predators that don't deliver the goods & wonder how a train wreck like Predators gets a theatrical release & wonder why Street Knight doesn't have a DVD release I'm sure Predators will get a whole bunch of goodies on the DVD & Blu Ray. It would nice where people could discover these fun solid entertaining action films. Street Knight was solid.

"Street Knight" is generally regarded as the film that ended Jeff Speakman's career, or at least his aspirations of becoming a big name in Hollywood. With The Perfect Weapon being as perfect of an action movie as it was, Speakman was all set to become the film world's next Van Damme when this one came around, failed to capture peoples' interests, and simultaneously ended the life of Cannon Films and condemned Speakman to acting in strict DTV fare. However, while "Street Knight" isn't a great action movie, I hardly consider it bad enough to kill a career. Fans of the man ought to take notice, at least, for this is one of the few decent ones that Speakman turned out subsequent to his initial masterpiece.

The story: Jake Barrett (Speakman), an ex-cop who left the force after failing to save a child during a hostage crisis, investigates a missing persons report at the request of a friend and consequently finds himself entrenched in a deadly gang war perpetrated by an evil mastermind (Christopher Neame, Hellbound) looking to wipe out his competition.

While this may have been the last movie that Cannon produced, it remains fully imbued with the cheesy charm that fans will be familiar with. The film absolutely howls B-movie for its indulgence in comfortably overdone themes and clichés: trash-talking ethnic gangbangers and over-the-top villains ("I can't wait to see this city in ashes"), an out-of-nowhere love scene followed by a shooting in a strip joint, on-location shooting in the ghetto-y parts of Los Angeles, and the added bonus of a chase scene on horseback. It's all very glorious stuff if you live for camp and is supported by a pretty neat cast: Jennifer Gatti (Watching You) as Jake's love interest, Richard Coca (Only the Strong) as her brother caught in the middle, and Lewis Van Bergen (Rage of Honor) as the turncoat police captain. Ketty Lester (Little House on the Prairie) plays Jake's kindly old neighbor and Bernie Casey (Never Say Never Again) makes an appearance as his professor-friend. Yup, everything here's set for a hammy good time.

Alas, a movie that's been built on camp can only truly satisfy if it has offers up decent action content, and this is where "Street Knight" fails. Actually, the action is very decent - there's just so little of it! It's incredibly disappointing that after the abundant, creative fight scenes of Speakman's initial vehicle, three out of the four hand-to-hand encounters in here do not exceed ten seconds in length. Speakman's still got the moves - proven when he battles powerlifting champion Tom Magee (Dragonfight) by replacing his trusty rattan sticks with a pair of wrenches - but when he only gets to use 'em so infrequently, their impact is nullified. With only the single stalk & shoot scene at the end of the movie to add to the mix, the film ends up feeling very toothless and ultimately unworthy of a man as physically talented as Jeff.

In short, you know from the start that the movie's going to take you right back to the good old days of '80s exploitation, but it becomes clear after a while that it's only going to get good to a certain degree and no better. The deficit of solid action scenes hurts the film more than anything else: if the fights were longer or more abundant, I easily could have given "Street Knight" an extra star, but sans them, we're left to realize that, on their own, Cannon trademarks are only satisfying up to a point. Still, there's enough of Jeff in here to buy (and enjoy) the movie just for his sake, so again, fans ought to take notice.

Pretty good, as far as having almost as much Kenpo techniques in it as "The Perfect Weapon" did & having a positive message at the end. Don't look for oscar-winning dialogue or storylines here either, just lots of action & (thankfully) not too many love scenes.

Hello. Last April I wrote a review for "The Perfect Weapon" asking to Paramount Pictures for DVD release. I don't knw why that movie along with "Street Knight" and "Deadly Outbreak" are not released on DVD. I think these movies are the best of Jeff Speakman.
I owned on VHS format hoping some day Paramount(The perfect weapon) and Warner(Street Knight) release them on DVD.

For any action/martial arts movie fan these movies need to be on DVD.

Street Knight is a fine movie, and Speakman along with Jeff Wincot are arguably the best actors/martial artists in American martial art movies. The Perfect Weapon introduced us to the expert in Kenpo, and gave us a great movie too. Street Knight, unfortunately is not as good of a movie, and Speakman's action scenes are very short and minimal.

Street Knight tries to become an above average B-action movie, and does so in terms of quailty, acting, and represented action. The story however never is very interesting, revolving around the big gangs of L.A., while another group of guys intervene the gang's peace while trying to attempt a jewely heist. Speakman's charcater, Jeff Barrett, helps a youg woman he knows by trying to locate her missing brother, who has been entangled in the gang situation. Action is rarely used until the last 15 minutes of the film, where Speakman is featured in only 2 decent fights, but both are over before you can really start to get into them.

If you are hoping for anything compared to The Perfect Weapon, you will be dissapointed. If you are expecting the worst movie ever, fortunately its not that either. An average film overall, that could have been better with more action and a little more exciting story.