MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Relentless’: How Bad Can a Cop Killer Thriller Film Get?

As you watch “Relentless,” (citywide), a relentlessly bad new killer-creep thriller with Judd Nelson as a kid with a cop complex, you may start to ruminate on what the movies say about Los Angeles.

Think about it. Anyone watching the average L. A. thriller might come to believe this city is populated entirely with crazed sex killers, wisecracking cops, flashy drug dealers, corrupt politicians, slick Hollywood agents and lawyers, joggers, fantastically sexy models cavorting in condo bedrooms and maniacs chasing and shooting each other on the freeways. Everybody has a telephone answering machine, personalized license plates and old movie posters on the walls.

“Relentless” doesn’t quite have all of that, but it does have a crazed slasher: Nelson as Buck, distraught son of a disciplinarian cop and brooding police academy reject. There are also plenty of wise-cracking police, notably Leo Rossi as a brash young dick who thinks he knows it all and Robert Loggia as a grizzled old pro who probably does. And there are numerous victims accumulating around town, while television remote crews wander around shoving their microphones into people’s faces.

The cliches here are bicoastal. Rossi’s Sam Dietz is a transplanted New Yorker, a Son of Sam-case vet who despises the plastic West; Loggia’s Bill Malloy is a buddy of Tommy Lasorda. Down at the precinct houses are a lot of disgruntled superiors who keep screaming incoherently and threatening them in various unconvincing ways. Dietz also has a cute family, including a New Age Wife (Meg Foster), who encourages him to take out his hostility on plants.

Nelson’s weird performance--a sotto voce psycho, moodily muttering while staring into mirrors--suggests he’s still in a semi-funk over his last movie thriller, the mind-boggling “Blue City.” Loggia and Rossi often seem to be auditioning for Barry Levinson. William Lustig directs furtively, with a lot of sneaky little camera moves and sideways sidles through smoggy exteriors and interiors. The snap-crackle-and-poop dialogue is credited to the possibly mythical Jack T.D. Robinson.

Does “Relentless” (MPAA-rated R for sex and violence) derive any L.A. images as much from life as from bad movies? Well, it does have realistic-sounding street noises. It also suggests that the police are sometimes slow to answer distress calls--though, in this movie, it’s probably because they’re rehearsing wisecracks. (“Take my magnum . . . please!”)

‘RELENTLESS’

A Cinetel Films Inc. Presentation. Producer Howard Smith. Director William Lustig. Script Jack T. D. Robinson. Camera James Lemmo. Editor Dave Kern. Stunt coordinator Spiro Razatos. Music Joseph Smith. With Judd Nelson, Robert Loggia, Leo Rossi, Meg Foster, Brendan Ryan, Patrick O’Bryan, Angel Tompkins.

Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes.

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