Third World Cop is dismissed by critics as another Dirty Harry tough cop film. The few who have commented in IMDB think better of it. Fully 10% of the Jamaican population paid to see this film in the theaters, making this Jamaican made film the highest grossing film ever in Jamaica. Tough cop Paul Campbell (Capone) is assigned to the Kingston ghetto where he was raised to bust a gun smuggling operation. As he was one of the few to escape the ghetto, it is old home week when he first arrives, but he soon discovers that his boyhood friends Razor and Ratty are part of the mob. Add a crooked cop to the mix, and the story has enough complexity to satisfy anyone.

This was shot on a budget of .5 million in 20 days, and was shot directly on digital video. I find this one worth seeing more than once. The relationship between Capone and Ratty is complex, there is plenty of action, some of the locations are absolutely gorgeous, and the Jamaican patois is fascinating to listen to. I have to admit that I needed to rely on the English subtitles more than once to understand what they were saying. All of the exposure takes place during the credit sequence, but I have done a few images of each of the women in the film to give an idea of just how lush the film looks.

Sometimes I start a review by drawing your attention to the fact that it's an odd movie, and you won't like it if you're a mainstream filmgoer. Wellsir, this ain't just an odd movie. This is arguably the oddest movie ever made. It makes that thing with Mastroiani as General Custer seem like a Doris Day movie.

It centers around Jesus returning to the earth in the old west, into the most run-down, shabbiest town in any dried up gulch. (Well, I suppose Bethlehem was no Paris either.) He's on his way to Jerusalem to be an actor/singer/dancer, and he's a whiz at performing 1940's boogie-woogie ("He's got the boogie in his fingers and the hubba-hubba in his soul"), although he's about 80 years ahead of his time and it isn't much appreciated by the locals.

Jesus, aka "Jessy", (Allan Arbus - the psychiatrist Sydney from M.A.S.H., and husband of the strange photographer Diane Arbus) is wearing a black and white striped 1940's zoot suit and a big pink hat, and looks pretty much like Jim Carrey after he puts The Mask on. God the Father is a crusty lookin' old cowboy greybeard, and The Holy Ghost wears a cowboy outfit except for the bed sheet over his head with two eyeholes cut out, and he's upset because The Father never gives him a chance to do anything important..

Seaweedhead Greaser is the guy who runs the town, and he has constipation problems. It appears to me that he can't move to action unless properly spurred by Mariachi music, so his quartet follows him around in case he needs them. Like all movie strongmen, he has a wimp of a son, and he kills the kid, Lamy Homo Greaser, in the first scene, but Jesus later brings him back to life, and .....

Let's see. Tattoo from Fantasy Island plays a homosexual cowpoke who makes a move on Christ. And there's a 90 year old man playing "Petunia" in pink gingham, and .....

... and there's really no way to describe this mess without going through every discontinuous scene. It was directed by the supremely odd Robert Downey Senior, and will give you some good indications of the fact that Downey Junior's drug problem may be an inherited thing.

The only nudity came from Toni Basil, as an Indian maiden. (1, 2)

Here's a good (funny) review if you want to know more.

Another detailed review.

IMDB summary: 6.7 out of 10. Surprisingly high. The rating doesn't mean much. You will either love it or think it's the stupidest thing you've ever seen. Or both.

DVD info from Amazon

There's good news and bad news.

The bad news: it's a movie with Steve Guttenberg

The good news: it's one of the the best movies with Steve Guttenberg. Oh sure it still sucks, but how hard is to to improve on Police Academy 4 and Can't Stop the Music.

Just for the record, here's the best and worst of Steve, as determined by IMDb ratings.

BEST:

Lisa Rogers
(1, 2, 3)

Danielle Douglas
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Jr. here...SILENCE! These are some of the clearest images I've seen from the VMAs. Nice Work!

2) Tell ICMS he is my hero. Through the haze of plaques and tangles I do recall the story of Brigitta Calens' run-in with the law that he wrote a while back. And any assurance that the BC cover is, indeed, the beauty queen herself is most welcome. The other scans were none too shabby, as well.

3) News from a Liz Smith-type who writes on one-line gossip column is that Christina Ricci has some sort of nude scene in her next movie. No clue as to how exposed and for how long, but I think we can assume it won't be Elizabeth Berkley-esque.

Yes, Mr Showbiz reported that Ricci's first nude scene will be in her upcoming movie "Prozac Nation"

4) Speaking of Ms. Berkley, attached is a reformatted collage of Tuna's caps from Any Given Sunday. Gawd, how I hated that movie. This person screams at that who screams back until the scene just sorta peters out from exhaustion. Bad guys become good guys when they magically see the light, as if Dickens hadn't worked that puppy to death more than a hundred years ago. Only the cameos (Johnny U as an opposing coach? Brilliant!) kept me from hitting not only Eject but also Erase. Lawdog did a poll of Oliver Stone's best movie a while back. No matter how long the list, None of the Above would be my choice.

5) Fitness models. That's a term requiring definition. Gotta appear in one of the several hundred mags with "Muscle" in its title, gotta pose with your buns showing at least once a day and gotta have a body by Fischer.... Dr. Fischer the plastic surgeon, that is. Plastic here refers to the inserts rather than the medical practice. In that context, I give you Danielle Douglas. Better looking than your average fitness babe (some are downright homely) but otherwise fits the definition to a T.

Plastic is right! Her lips, her boobs, probably her cheeks and chin, and I'll even wager that's not the snout she was born with!

A great find! I recommend #7 and #8.