 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 1992 film maniac cop 3 badge of silence And yes, I already have on my channel reviews for maniac cop and maniac cop 2 so you can check those out Also, those are all available on shutter streaming service when I'm doing this review So you can check it out there if you want to watch it also spoilers because this is an old movie So and I got to dig into it. So let's get into the details Directed once again by William Lustig this is one of these super rare occasions where there are three films in this trilogy obviously being a trilogy and Larry Cohen was the writer for all of them and William Lustig was the director for all of them Which is so rare, but is so cool, and I think that's what makes it so that in my opinion All the films are actually at least decent I like the first one. I like the second one I think a little bit more than the first one and I do like this one to a degree But it is my least favorite Which I think the consensus has been in the public that the third one is the least favorite of everyone's But I don't I still don't think it's bad like I watch it, and I'm not like that's a waste of time It's decent, but we'll get more into that So William Lustig great, and that's a thing like the directing is really good with all the films This one included the writing the script wise with Cohen writing pretty solid on this one There's some really good ideas there And this is a really good movie to kind of deep dive into because he was trying to he had some metaphors in there And he had some kind of subtext to it and themes in it that I'll talk about which are really cool But I think overall the writing of it and the execution it seems too long It's like an hour and 20 minutes basically and it seems longer than that which is bad There's a lot of stuff in it That's pretty uneven when you keep going between what Cordell is up to after he's resurrected with voodoo Versus what the police officers are going to with Sullivan being shot and being in the coma It feels like they're focusing way too heavy on the whole coma thing I know it is important because they're trying to tie the two together But it feels very very uneven and there's way too much time where you're just not getting enough Cordell And the other thing is when you are getting Cordell for the most part the kills aren't good And that's one of the things like if you're gonna do a second sequel You're gonna need to have better kills or at least as good a kills as you had in the other films And you're probably gonna need to have more gore and that's the other thing is there isn't more gore The kills are not better the kills are actually worse than the other two films They're actually very blah in my opinion, but there is some good stuff in this film Which I'm gonna go on to talk about obviously Robert Zadar is back as Matt Cordell aka maniac cop Robert Dobby is back as McKinney, and you know, he's best known for being in the goonies But he's been like die hard and predator to stuff like that. So good actor I was really cool to see Jackie Earl Haley in this as the the villain Frank Scumbag Frank he did a great job with that role. He looked like he was pretty much enjoying it He did a very some very nice work and then also Ted Raimi was very briefly in it as like a newscaster Which you know, I just like seeing Ted Raimi here and there. He's a cool guy This originally got an NC 17 rating and then they lost that on appeal Which if I'm seeing the original version, I don't understand why it's NC 17. It's not that Gory or violent. I mean there is good violence to it But it's more violence of like real-life violence violence like police versus bad guys type violence So I don't know that that just seemed weird to me It came out to very pretty negative reviews and some actually some called it borderline on watchable Which I don't agree with that at all. I guess maybe people are kind of viewing it differently back then I guess because it is you know, it is a Departure from the quality of the first and second one overall, but I don't know. I wouldn't say it's borderline on watchable I don't understand that It got a this one also got a release on blu-ray through blue underground Which if you saw my review for the second film that did as well The scrolling text in the beginning of this And giving like a bit of a backstory is Good, that's kind of a better way of giving that bit of backstory like they did in the second one With just like actually showing the end portion of the of the first film I I don't like that when they just kind of recap it by actually showing you stuff that was in the first film So the the text kind of scrolling up and telling you what happened as a backstory was much quicker And I kind of preferred that But then they recapped some of the actual like good violence from the second film And I thought that was fine because like those are the exciting cool scenes and actually Those are kind of like the best violence type scenes in this film involving Cordell that is so I do like the touch of showing How Cordell was resurrected because you get that at the very end of the second film Whereas hand pops through the casket and grabs the badge on it So I like that they kind of tell you how that happened now It's voodoo, which you know during this time there was a lot of voodoo Incorporated into you know resurrection of bodies and stuff like that in the 80s and 90s So this is obviously early 90s. So, you know, this was a thing So they were doing that But I think there's something else at play here, which I'll talk about later with why they're using voodoo not not specifically voodoo But basically a religion to resurrect Cordell so I'll talk about that in a bit But you know this just kind of reminds me of the voodoo that was used in weekend at Bernie's too Which if you haven't seen weekend at Bernie's too, and you've seen the first one just check it out Like it's not good, but it's like laughably fun. I'll just say that There's something about that baton swinging like the sound of it and the look of it That's just awesome. So I love how when Cordell comes back like it They're back to the baton swinging which they had in the second one It's just cool and obviously it's you know the knife baton, which is a cool weapon. I dig it They had a cool transition from black in this one with the bullet holes going into the target. That was a really cool Scene starter that Lustig came up with I love it very very awesome Is this the same convenience store that was being held up in the second one Because the convenience store that they have in this that starts, you know Kind of the conflict with the police and Frank It looks exactly like the convenience store in the second one and I was just like if it's the same one It's just it's kind of funny because it's like man this convenience store can't get a break And then I said holy crap The mother of Sullivan basically said just let my daughter die if it looks like she's gonna die And I think that first of all, that's a for shadowing in a way second of all it is also a a kind of look at quality of life with intervention of modern medicine at least modern medicine then and Kind of the question of you know Do you keep someone alive hooked up to machines and on a ventilator and everything if they're in a coma or do you just let Them go now obviously her mother's choice and she talked about religion a little bit is you know Just let her go let her soul go But then you see kind of the other side of it where you know Cordell died but because of his desire to set things right or Get revenge basically because he was wronged his soul wasn't at rest and that's actually the reason they say The guy who brought him back with voodoo. He said like, you know, I was able to bring you back But you you had to accept it basically like your soul was not at rest So it accepted you being resurrected in a sense. So that was kind of interesting I do like the dog. Okay. I already talked about that Sorry, Lustig always does a good job shooting Cordell in the shadows and there's a bunch of that in the beginning So it's just like a cool like silhouette and he's always shot really well It's like just enough lighting and I like it. I Don't think cutting off Frank's air the part this is a very small thing But when McKinney's cutting off Frank's air I don't think that actually would have done what it did because it's not like he was actually Intubated and the machine was breeding for him. It was just giving him extra oxygen So he wouldn't have been like choking for air like he was Especially because of the way he was talking prior to that happening and he seemed pretty fine So that's just a small thing. But those things kind of bother me I assume the nightmare that woke Sullivan up was supposed to be a mix of her Of her seeing that she's becoming a little bit too much like Cordell because that's kind of talked about People actually make that comparison of Sullivan versus Cordell quite a bit in this film So it's kind of a nightmare of her being like oh my god I might be coming too much like him, but also feeling Getting that kind of spiritual feeling that Cordell was back from the dead basically But it's also foreshadowing because Cordell wants her as a bride in the end Which is some interesting kind of like bride of Frankenstein story injection into this Which I guess you kind of get at the end the bride of Frankenstein and the very very end scene where the burnt hand comes Out and touches the other one. So I saw that was interesting McKinney using the gurney As a way to like get a drop on Frank and the other bad guy to shoot him up was a very cool action scene And that that kind of goes with something else is like this isn't so much It is a horror film, but it's more an action film than it is horror film And I mean I feel like the first and second one are like that too like the whole trilogy is like that I'd call it like an action horror film more action with some horror to it So and the action scenes are cool the romance between McKinney and dr. Fowler in this is Pointless stupid just injected for having a relationship But you have to understand when you're watching this that that's what they did back then You know 80s 90s for a long time in film actually even before 80s 90s They felt like they always had had a have a romance have a have that Relationship aspect to it even when it doesn't matter and I'm glad that we've kind of gone away from that quite a bit in film Because I'm fine with it being there if it actually serves a purpose for the story in this it doesn't at all It's just pointless and dumb and actually waste time and slows the film down When you really don't need to do that this film really needed to be picked up with pacing The flaming cordel car chase is really cool and something I said in my review of Maniac cop 2 was that they had to find a way to like up the ante on the car chases in that because they had car Chases in the first one and they did that with like the sparks And then having the second car chase be in it in a van But this one they did it by having a flaming cordel driving the car and doing the chase So yet again, I was actually impressed they were able to find a way to kind of up the ante on the car chase again And make it interesting so kudos on that it was it was fun And then the whole thing in the end with McKinney like lighting a cigarette off of the burning arm I thought that's awesome. I thought it's funny You know, it's just a really funny moment because you don't expect it You're like, oh, he's getting out of cigarette and then he picks up the burning arm and lights it with it It's just it's a good way to to come into the end of the film. That's funny And I didn't say that much about the actual events of the film because honestly It's a it's a bit of a slog to get through it Like I said, there's like some cool thematic and metaphorical things in the film But overall if you're viewing it is just like a film without trying to deep dive into it It's pretty boring except for those few scenes that I've talked about Just saying especially because the kills with Cordell are not that great And I think that Cordell just should have been in it more Yeah, it's just it's it's uneven So let me go to some of the themes and stuff that I really wanted to bring up which I think are pretty solid This one goes off the disappointment of seeing justice not fully served Which is basically what Cordell is the personification of and I talked about this in my review for the second one he is the restless personification of All the disappointment that police officers see when justice isn't actually served and that's happening in this because You know, obviously the situation with that, you know, Jack Earl Haley's character Frank is that he's it looks like he's gonna get out of You know the justice that he should have had coming to him for what he did because of the spin from the media from that particular news station, so It's definitely a play in this one here It's the next step of it takes it to that next step It kind of plays more on the lawyers coming into play and the media coming into play prior to that It was still just within the police department and them causing issues and covering things up now It's kind of expanded and gone further than that and it's the lawyers and it's the media trying to you know Create the perfect environment so that this guy doesn't actually get what should have been coming to him He he gets a unbelievable break that he shouldn't have because he's scum obviously like we see in the beginning This makes a point of X the exploitative nature Potential exploitative nature of media when it comes to covering crimes It's about making something awful into entertainment Which stands in stark contrast to police trying to deal with that The police want it to go away and they want to deal with it So it does go away But the media actually prays for things like this to happen because of entertainment value and it gets eyes on their channel Literally early on in this the cameraman was praying He said he was praying to the news gods that there would be something good to cover like that and it's gross It's disgusting now when I talk about this This is some real life type stuff with there is a problem with the way that that Violence and crime is covered within the media Generally not always, but it is important to note that the media is not evil I know there's been this movement of people saying the media is terrible. That's fake news all this stuff. That's bullshit That's total bullshit. You just need to be able to look at what's being presented and understand What is problematic and what is not because it's a mixture. It's much like anything in life. There's a lot of gray area There's a lot of gray area. It's not all black or white and all the media is not all bad And the media is not all good. It's a mixture of stuff So you just need to be smart use your critical thinking and keep your eyes open The moment the cameraman is interviewing the kid whose sister was shot is a really pivotal moment This speaks a lot to what I was saying about this media issue of how they portray violence Because there's a moment where he can be human the cameraman can be human when he realizes That it was the kids sister and he's very emotional about it He literally puts his job aside for a second by moving away from the camera That's him distancing himself from his actual job And at that moment you think he's gonna say something like oh, you know I'm really sorry and like console him and be a human for a moment and you see him thinking about that But then he puts his eye back behind the camera and he keeps going he's chosen his profession and and getting the interview and and Using this death this violence as a way to get ratings and create entertainment He's made that terrible choice and that is something that people actually do people not just I'm not just talking in a media situation But there are people who will choose their profession over Humanity and it happens a lot so yeah It's messed up and I like that the script speaks to that type of stuff And like I'm saying like there's a lot to pick apart with this film and it gets pretty deep It's just if you're watching it as a straight film. It's pretty relatively boring and Then the last thing I have to say is our last two things it's interesting to see in this religion bringing the dead back but with great agony and Similarly modern medicine is actually bringing people back from the brink of death But also with great agony and it's great soul agony with Cordell being brought to back from the brought back from the dead with Religion and physical agony and actually some mental and maybe soul agony with some with People being brought back from the brink of death by modern medicine best seen with Sullivan as she's like having these nightmares and everything and It gets to my final kind of thought about this Which I think is really cool and interesting to really consider about this film With that said, what's the difference between the physical states of Cordell and Sullivan in this film? One kept alive by religion and one by medicine Cordell has flashbacks of his life Which are painful causing pain for him while Sullivan has nightmares of hers also painful for her So painful at one point that actually wakes her out of her coma momentarily So I think that that's a really cool dichotomy that they show there that Different but similar religion on this side bringing people back from the dead and there's so much pain with that and modern Medicine on this side bringing people back from the brink of death and there's so much agony and pain with that And I love how these two characters come together and it's the Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein I think for that reason it's kind of brilliant that it was written that way But once again the actual execution of just watching the film isn't as Interesting as this kind of underlying theme this subtext this metaphor of play here So it's kind of unfortunate for that reason But that said because I see these things in the film. I kind of like it more than people may like it But it's I still recognize it's not like great. So With a total potential of five stars and half stars in play I'm gonna give it a two and a half star rating because it really does put me right on the fence with it Like I really like the deep dive aspect of it But if I watch it again, am I watching it for that? Probably not and watching it from that standpoint It's not that entertaining. It's it's like I said, it feels longer than it is Which is not good because it's not a long film But anyway, I would have been interested to see what they could have done with a fourth film They could have taken that that Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein and two to resurrected killers could have happened because you now You know, it's possible so just saying but Yeah, put your comments down here I want to know your thoughts not just about maniac cop three beds of silence But all the maniac cop films and we can talk about whatever else you want to horror wise Do me a quick favor though hit that subscribe button It really does mean a lot to me personally and it can mean a lot for my Growth of my channel and I really do. 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