TOP COP (1990) is a DTV knockoff cop thriller that leaves no cliché unturned in its bald-faced desire to emulate Hollywood police thrillers on an Arkansas shoestring budget. To say the least, location filming adds nothing to the production value unless you live in Arkansas. You have to give writer-producer Helen Pollins (whither she?) credit for drafting a screenplay that, with a Big Studio spit shine and top-drawer professionals on both sides of the camera, might have made a standard low-tier Joel Silver production for the era, or perhaps even a TV pilot. But when you're stuck filming in Arkansas with a cast of unknowns and amateurs and a very low budget as director Mark Maness is here, trying to emulate the big boys is a losing game that makes everyone look a little silly by comparison, no matter how reasonably swift your pace or how capable your screenplay, or who you bribed for a few crane shots. The top cop of the title is Stephen P. Sides, a gap-toothed Bob Seger lookalike with a long-haul trucker's ass who violates all sorts of laws in at least two states to bring a smug drug dealer (Len Schlientz) to justice, losing his partner along the way and being paired with a rookie just like in a million other movies. Pollins' dialogue ranges from "I'm too old for this sh**t" to "You guys are dead. You just don't know it yet" and is indicative of everything Hollywood was paying top dollar for at the time--except to Pollins, I guess. The action even builds to a big set-piece climax, but since this is Arkansas, it takes place in a junkyard and requires the villain to suddenly become very very stupid in his quest to take down our hero. Overall, a failure, but a failure worth watching to see what amateurs can do even when they think too big for their wallets.
