MOVIE REVIEW : GUN IS THE LAW IN ‘AMERICAN JUSTICE’

When you see a title like “American Justice” (citywide), you can quickly assume that the movie, though probably set in America, won’t be about justice--at least in the dictionary sense of “the assignment of merited rewards or punishments.”

Instead, it will be about a band of verminous, hammy scum committing unspeakable atrocities, and then getting theirs, as bloodily, loudly and gruesomely as possible. “American Justice” (R), whose ads promise us “justice from the barrel of a gun,” ends up delivering just that--despite a few weak, tentative moves toward social realism and political melodrama.

Justice, here, can’t be found with anything but a gun. And the major questions seem to be: Who has the guns? Who has more of them? Most important, who has the classy rifle with the nifty electronic red search beam? (The man whose heart is pure and aim is true.)

In the beginning, you expect a little more--though the casting of TV’s “Simon and Simon” brothers, Jameson Parker and Gerald McRaney as good and bad cop, respectively, may seem a stunt. We’re taken to a wide-open border town, where a cabal of corrupt police and smelly psychopaths runs, out of barns and brothels, a slave market of kidnaped Mexican illegal aliens. (Some of the villains moonlight as talent scouts for snuff porn.)

By chance, a visiting ex-cop in search of redemption (Jack Lucarelli) stumbles onto the murder of a Mexican girl and ends up in a small war. When he and his policeman buddy (Parker) go to report the crime, the killer, Wheeler (McRaney), is right in the station. He’s another cop, drinking in their conversation as he pushes files.

At that point, you still anticipate, somewhat favorably, a cat-and-mouse game, a war of nerves between the troubled visitor and the brutally confident killer. (McRaney gives the villain a terrifying image: bullet-headed death in shades.) But the movie gets immediately confrontational. Lucarelli blurts out the news and picks a fight with Wheeler. Goodby, slow, inexorable buildup.

Instead, the violence escalates predictably until another tooth-and-claw climax, as Lucarelli--who’s been half-killed--binds up his wounds and goes off to face half a dozen armed men alone in the desert in the dead of night. (When the movie’s only sensible character offers to help him, naturally he gets turned down.)

Some of the actors here (McRaney, Wilford Brimley) acquit themselves well. And the Arizona scenery is pleasant. But the movie is mostly knee-jerk sadism and gore-wallowing--with a lot of back-stabbing, crotch-kicking, gun-waving, scab-picking, car-chasing and blood-smeared brawls. Justice? America? They’re nowhere in sight.

‘AMERICAN JUSTICE’

A Movie Store presentation of a Hunter/MFG production. Producers Jack Lucarelli, Jameson Parker. Director Gary Grillo. Script Dennis A. Pratt. Associate producer Steve Mirkovich. Music Paul Chihara. Camera Steve Yaconelli. Editor Steve Mirkovich. With Wilford Brimley, Jack Lucarelli, Gerald McRaney, Jameson Parker, Jeannie Wilson.

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.

MPAA rating: R (under 17 requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian).