Signal One

1994, 1080hd

Johnny's comments:

Signal One (also known as Bullet Down Under) is a 1993 thriller where American cop Martin Bullet (Christopher Atkins) kills a kid during a bust and decides it's time to move with his Australian wife Charlene (Maureen O'Shaughnessy) and become a cop in Sydney. Meanwhile, Detective Jack Moran (Mark 'Jacko' Jackson) is first on the scene of a murder with his partner Boza and in a chase with the supposed killer, his partner gets hurts badly. The actual killer is mentally impaired Frankie (Richard Carter) who panicked during a drug deal and his brother Doug (Alfred Bell) attempts to get the cops off his scent by serving up the supposed killer, Tony, who works for Chinese crime lord Chang Kai Chee (Kee Chan). Bullet joins Moran as his partner and they track Tony but he gets away. Tony tracks down Frankie and slaughters him while Doug continues to play both sides by giving the cops Tony again except Tony is not quite who they think he is.

Fairly standard cop thriller but is surprisingly better than it has any right to be by having one helluva twist. While the story is nothing special and the cops same old, same old, the twist adds some life to the movie that gets snuffed out with a pretty pedestrian end chase. Jacko plays the only character he can play but plays it well enough to outshine boring old Christopher Atkins, and his whooping and hollering during his sex scene (yes, you read right) is fairly amusing, which helps leaven the blow of seeing his arse. It's nothing special and the less said about some of the stuff in the movie, the better, but Signal One is an OK movie which is a surprise considering it's from the low rent Phillip Avalon stable of films (Summer City, Fatal Bond, Tunnel Vision, The Pact, Liquid Bridge).

Maureen O'Shaughnessy film clip (collages below)

Virginia Hey film clip (collages below)