Peacemaker (1990)

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Absolutely brilliant

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

A mysterious alien lands on earth and is seemingly unstoppable by the cops because on the planet he comes from, any kind of wound can be quickly healed. He ends up convincing Dori Caisson (Shepard) to help him get back to his home planet. Learning English overnight from watching TV, he ends up calling himself Townsend (Edwards). You can't really blame him, Robert Townsend was huge at the time. But there's trouble in the form of fellow alien Yates (Forster), who Townsend claims is an intergalactic serial killer and must be brought back to justice. But it's not going to be easy, as the two are causing all sorts of havoc all over L.A. But who can Dori trust? Both claim to be "Peacemakers", their planet's version of police officers. One must be lying, and Dori is caught in the middle. Meanwhile, Sgt. Ramos (Davi) is trying to put law enforcement into the middle of this mess, all the while hitting on Dori. Who is the real Peacemaker? Find out today! Fries Home Video was never a major player back in the video store days. They were just one of many labels vying for the patron's dollar. Peacemaker seems to be their attempt at competing with very similar but higher-tier titles like I Come In Peace (1990), The Hidden (1987), The Borrower (1991) and even Critters (1986). Plus Lance Edwards' accent and overall demeanor is unquestionably Terminator (1984)-esque. Thankfully, it's all done with enough energy, enthusiasm and humor, ensuring that this movie is not a slog at all; it's actually quite enjoyable. In our personal estimation, one of the main reasons for that is that it's more of an action thriller, and the sci-fi elements, such as they are, aren't oppressive, they're just enough to support the plot. Stunts (courtesy of BJ Davis and Mike Norris, among many others), chases, shooting and other action scenes firmly place Peacemaker in the action camp, and we're grateful it weighs more heavily on that end of the scales.Robert Forster looks cool with his bomber jacket and giant gun, and fan-favorite Robert Davi puts in an interestingly low-key performance. We were also very thankful that the character of Dori was not annoying. So many times before we've seen situations where that type of character is always irreparably confused or whining the whole time. But Dori is likable, perhaps because she was a classic 90's-style jokester. 1990 was when having a wry, referential and somewhat cynical sense of humor was cool, before it became overdone, and before things were dripping with irony. Dori, like the movie itself, hits that sweet spot before things went to hell because of MTV and such. Come on, apparently this movie was made at a time when cops at the precinct still smoked pipes for goodness' sake. Pipes! Well, at least one guy did. This "PipeCop" as we called him, intrigued us and we wished we knew more about him. Perhaps a spin off TV show would have answered all of our questions. Sadly, to date this has not happened. But with Hollywood dredging up everything from cartoons to board games because they're bereft of ideas, hasn't PipeCop's day truly come? Peacemaker is well-made and fun to watch. While they may have overdone the twist of "who's really the bad guy?" (you can't keep doing that over and over - it would have been more effective if they had done it less, in our opinion) there are far more positives than negatives here. We say check it out.

"Peacemaker" joyfully rips off "The Hidden," "Highlander," and half a dozen other S-F flicks, but you won't really care. This could be a pretty straightforward thriller without even resorting to the S-F elements. (This is a good thing, too, because it's obvious that the director and producer have no desire to shoot major S-F scenes. The arrival of the "rover" ship is stock footage...you never see it on the ground. The one scene of an alien healing his hand is pretty simple stop-motion. There are no futuristic weapons.) On the other hand, there are plenty of car crashes. Good, old-fashioned physical effects rule the day.The plot and writing are so-so, but serviceable. I'm used to being yanked several different ways during a movie, but I honestly didn't know for sure which alien was "good" and which was "bad" until about 2/3 of the way through the film.Robert Forster and Robert Davi turn in satisfactory performances. Lance Edwards makes a valiant attempt to simulate some weird speech impediment throughout the film, but doesn't really pull it off. (He's just learned to speak English by watching TV all night...sound familiar?) Hilary Shepard just plain chews up the scenery. Still, they all work together and nobody stands out as being way superior or inferior to the other members of the cast.It's a B-movie that stands just a little bit taller than most of the other dreck out there.

God help me, but I enjoyed this movie a great deal. Jewell Shepard is funny and beautiful and irresistible when gratuitously tied up in phone cord (don't ask), Robert Forster does his usual sturdy work, there is an interesting flip-flop in character sympathies part of the way through and yes, there are some great car stunts and some great fight gags.It was entertaining in spite of its low budget and obviously derivative origins and looked good, too (in terms of lighting and cinematography). It's nice to see people working in the movie industry that do a good job, a professional job, despite working on what is essentially a piece of junk.

1st watched 10/18/2001 - 4 out of 10 (Dir- Kevin Tenney): One of the many regenerating alien that never dies movie's has some good scenes and a little bit of whodunit(being tricked into who is the bad alien and who is the good alien). Despite a few good scenes, overall this is pretty much a retread from many of the same kinds of movies. It has a few car crashes, chase scenes, violent fights with of course the ever-popular regenerating aliens which we've all seen before, and of course there has to be alien-sex (leaving the possibility for a sequel.) And finally, an Arnold Schwarzenegger sound-alike complete with speech impedement who happens to be the good alien. If this all doesn't sound familiar you haven't been watching some of the most popular science fiction movies of all time. Go back and watch them instead.