Review of Sworn to Justice (1996) by Keenan S — 05 Apr 2014

Sworn To Justice is a decent, but heavily flawed martial arts and revenge film. This has also been my first taste of Cynthia Rothrock (The queen of B-movie martial arts films).

The plot follows a woman who vows to get revenge against the gang who murdered her sister and nephew through a lot of ass kicking and use of her new found ESP powers. By day, she is a defense attorney and by night, she seeks revenge against those who have wronged her, while also pursuing a romantic interest. It's very hokey and over the top to say the least.

While the film works decently as an action/revenge film, the film stumbles when it tries to add heavy drama into the mix, which sometimes causes the film to drag at certain points when it insists the viewer try to take it seriously. The drama is at best on the level of a soap opera, which left me annoyed whenever the film insisted that I try to take it seriously.

The film also suffers from some jarring tonal shifts, such as when Rothrock's character stops a robbery at a store in a fight scene that resembles something that you'd see in a slapstick comedy (Complete with cartoony sound effects, too), and then it suddenly shifts to a scene when she's at home grieving the loss of her loved ones while sad music plays.

Despite terrible drama and jarring tonal shifts, the film manages to save itself from being crap by having solid fight scenes, funny humor, fun and campy acting by a charming cast, as well as having much-needed staples of cheesy 90's action films in the form of cheap sex scenes and nudity (As well as cheesy saxophone music that accompanies such scenes!). It works fine for 90 minutes of stupid entertainment if you have nothing better to do.