Review of Striking Distance (1993) by Bill S — 14 Sep 2014

For every good cop movie out there, there are a dozen just like "Striking Distance", a ridiculous patchwork of cop movie cliches held together by a threadbare serial killer storyline and laughable dialogue. Writer and director Rowdy Herrington turned a mess just like this into pure gold a few years back with "Roadhouse" but he cannot work that same magic again with this mess.

There are enough red herrings for two movies, a tired plot and at the center of it all a very weary-looking Bruce Willis going through the motions. He's given some of the most embarrassing one-liners of his career and a character who is such a cliche it's almost a parody. We've all seen this disgraced cop slumming in a job that's beneath him a dozen times before, and since Willis is slumming himself. He's not even trying to do anything fresh with this material.

Sarah Jessica Parker is completely miscast as his new partner, and you fail to see what she sees in him when their relationship inevitably turns romantic. The big reveal at the end will have you scratching your head twice trying to take it all in, and I'm still trying to sort out just how plausible it really is. The entire mess culminates in a preposterous extended chase scene in which Robert Pastorelli proves to have more lives than a cat.

There are some decent action sequences early on, but "Striking Distance" is a paint-by-numbers police thriller without a single original thought or concept. You can tell by watching it that Willis feels his fans deserve better, and you know what? He's right.