State of the R

By RICHARD CORLISS

VICE SQUAD

Directed by Gary A. Sherman

Screenplay by Sandy Howard, Kenneth Peters and Robert Vincent O'Neil

Just another night in Los Angeles, when the flotsam of the California shores washes up on Sunset Strip: pimps, whores, bikers and the occasional maniac. Nighttown always threatens to burst into a conflagration of libidos, and the only firemen in sight are the seen-it-all plainclothesmen of the vice squad. They know every hooker they bust will be out on bail, back on her back within an hour and any felonious punk can plea-bargain grand-theft-auto down to a citation for speeding. The vice squad is not expected to put out the fire, just to keep it down to a dark smolder.

That big blond cowboy with the evil grin is Ramrod (Wings Hauser), who manages a stable of prostitutes. He says he loves them, often he beats them, sometimes they die. Tonight, Ramrod is feeling meaner than usual. Seems that Princess (Season Hubley), the proverbial whore with a heart of depreciated gold, has set him up for the boys in blue. Time she was taught a fatal lesson, if Ramrod can just find her. And he will, using all the resources of his psychopathy--unless the vice squad finds him first.

A movie like Vice Squad comes along every few years to test the state of the R--to see how much lowlife energy can be splattered on-screen without drawing an X rating. It also offers technicians with eyes on loftier assignments a chance to parade their craft by aiming low, like a sniper at a grounded blimp. Director Sherman is a young-old hand at this (remember Raw Meat?); he keeps the camera steady, the action terse and his cast overacting at a uniform pitch that amounts to a house style. The movie does not stint on intelligently choreographed thrills. Like a sleek, knowledgeable hooker, Vice Squad delivers.

--By Richard Corliss

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