Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Watchable but not top tier thriller, January 4, 2005
This is a 1980's updating of the classic 50's pulp novel by the great Mickey Spillane and it has its fair share of violence and sex -and is not recommended for those who find such elements unacceptable .
The script is by Larry Cohen -who was originally slated to direct but was removed from the project after shooting began .His script has little to do with the original book and if you want a movie that follows the Spillane plot then you need to go back to the original .
Mike Hammer goes hunting for the guys who killed his old army buddy and in so doing finds himself up to his ears in a complex plot involving the Syndicate , the CIA and mind control techniques being used to create robot assassins .There is also a sex clinic stirred into the plot along the way .
The story is frankly untidy and sprawling and the movie would have best been served by adhering to the pure lines of the original novel rather than pursuing then modish ideas and plot devices .The movie is thus incoherent at times and it seems as if some quite large chunks of plot exposition were jettisoned in order to make room for more action sequences
Ignore the confused and disjointed plot however and there are some good things about I, The Jury -the action scenes are well handled ,there is the odd sharp and cynical line and the acting especially from Armand Assante as Hammer is good .
Its not a bad movie but given the talent involved it could and should have been a lot better .Watchable -if you are stuck for something better to do
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Spillane, pain, and no work for your brain, November 29, 2002
This is pretty much a 1982 by-the-numbers rehash of both the Mickey Spillane 1947 novel and the 1953 film of the same name. Here, though, Mike Hammer's secretary Velda not only carries a gun but can use it as well as her boss. And here as well, unlike the 1953 Hollywood Code restrictions that kept film directors from showing all the naughty bits, director Richard Heffron can display Armand Assante's Hammer and Barbara Carrera's sexy Caroline Bennett going at it with wild abandon.This movie moves through its Spillane-juiced plot fairly effortlessly. Assante is fine, Paul Sorvino is appropriately tight-lipped as Pat Chambers, Mike Hammer's police force contact, and the women all flagrantly disobey women's lib edicts of equal status and respect by submitting (either immediately or eventually) to Hammer's virile presence. Spillane was known, when he started out, as the number one purveyor of pure pulp in detective fiction--i.e., overt sex and violence. Heffron's film gives a few sly winks at this; the director realizes that juxtaposing some of the writer's themes with '80s mentality fits and doesn't fit, both at the same time. This paradox mostly works because nobody watching the film has to think much about anything at all--it IS pure pulp. Hammer is subjected to the pain of seeing the corpse of his best friend and to some gritty torture, later in the film, and this all adds to the juicy pulpy ride. Not great, but not bad. An evening's diversion for those of you who don't mind a slightly sarcastic "return" to the mores of the '50s couched in '80s 'hipness'.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Armand Assante as "Mike Hammer"., August 19, 2004
For Mature Adults Only! Contains male nudity and full frontal female nudity. Scenes of orgy and sexual situations. Rated "R".
Based upon the novel by Mickey Spillane.
Armand Assante is "Mike Hammer", a private detective in new York City. There is a killer on the loose. He has already killed a one-arm cop in his home. Then each furthur victim has some connection to the first victim. Mike Hammer is close on the trail and meets some sexy women along the way. This case is so dangerous he can't even trust his friends on the force.
Armand Assante really made this film for me.
Also in the cast: Laurene Landon, Judson Scott, Julia Barr, Barbara Carrera, Alan King, Geoffrey Lewis, Paul Sorvino, Lee Anne Harris and Lynette Harris.
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