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A policewoman tries to help two teenage crack addicts. When she doesn't succeed, and the girls die, she goes after the crack dealers.

Low rent thriller with an on the street grittiness

We can see they were trying and putting forth effort

*** This review may contain spoilers *** *Plot and ending analyzed* L. A. Crackdown (1987) Well, once again a movie that doesn&#39;t live up to its title. You think you are going to get a violent cop vigilante movie from the 80s, but what we get instead is a bloody tedious &#39;teenager reform&#39; family type drama. Minus any real drama. Minus any real sense. It was shot on a lousy video camera, so right off it looks terrible. No budget, horrendous writing and inept acting is the normal here. Some female cop/social worker takes a couple of delinquent girls home because she has a big heart, or simply because she wants to catch some drug dealers. Fill in the cliche blanks. It is long and boring. There is a laughable scene with the female cop taking out a couple of goons in a pool hall with a cue stick, or a bat. I forgot which. Most hilarious scene: Two strippers standing around pretending to dance, looking bored out of their mind. And they use the same scene twice. How is that for lazy editing? The ending was influenced by Dirty Harry movies, but the female cop is so lackluster that it is just monotonous. It&#39;s probably a safer bet just to watch a few episodes of Police Woman (TV Series 1974-1978) or The Streets of San Francisco (1972-1977), or just get Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987). Further: Hollywood Vice Squad (1986), Angel (1983), Avenging Angel (1985), Vice Squad (1982).

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L.A. Crackdown

L.A. CRACKDOWN is a 1988 action thriller directed by Joseph Merhi, the Syrian born chap responsible for directing and producing a seemingly endless stream of low-budget thrillers throughout the 1990s. Plot-wise, it&#39;s a nondescript thing about a dedicated policewoman who personally sees the plight of crack-addicted drug addicts and decides to go after the dealers herself in order to teach them a lesson. Everything about this film is cheap but I found the lack of budget gives it a certain grittiness not to be found in bigger budgeted and slicker Hollywood productions. Another surprise is that the characters are a lot better than the genre usually provides, with a sympathetic lead bolstered by likable supporting characters; you find yourself really rooting for the heroine as she seeks to get revenge against some fairly disgusting villains. The action, when it hits, is strictly routine, but the film doesn&#39;t disappoint in its depiction of a raw and realistic &#39;street&#39; atmosphere.

Karen Shore (Dixon) is a policewoman and chief member of something called the Social Youth Organization. Karen is earnest and caring when it comes to the downtrodden girls of L.A. who are mired in drugs, prostitution, pornography, and other forms of sleaze. She&#39;s so nurturing and motherly that she takes Angie (Parks) and Fiona (Kita Harrison), two wastrels caught in the grimy underworld, into her home to try to rehabilitate them. That puts her at loggerheads with her husband Paul (Olsen), who doesn&#39;t want them there, but ends up getting caught sleeping with Angie (what did Karen think would happen?) - eventually Karen decides to take the law into her own hands and go right to the source of the drug epidemic - the pushers. This despite the admonishments of Wallace (Van Haynes). Will Karen crack up? Or will there be an L.A. CRACKDOWN? L.A. Crackdown is a prime example of a City Lights production (for those who don&#39;t know, that&#39;s the company that preceded PM Entertainment), and it&#39;s written and directed, as usual for City Lights, by Joseph Merhi, who also gets a killer death scene as a baddie named Speed. Watch out for that. Actress Pamela Dixon never did a movie outside the City Lights/PM universe. Surely that must say something. 
A lot of what we said in our review for The Glass Jungle also applies here - it simultaneously works as a time capsule, and as an example of a truly independent low-budget film made by people who just wanted to make entertaining movies. That shows in every scene, and despite some flaws (amateurish technical aspects, stodgy plotting, acting that defies any logical definition), we as viewers do NOT see movies like this being made anymore. Products like this should be, if not cherished, certainly investigated and re-evaluated. If they were ever evaluated in the first place. 
What we&#39;ve got here is a social drama with gun-shooting. Like a lot of movies of the time, it seems influenced by Miami Vice (which, let&#39;s not forget, was a phenomena of that time). Interestingly, the movie seems especially informed by the episode called &quot;Little Miss Dangerous&quot;, which first aired in &#39;86. That episode starred musician/actress Fiona. Could that be a coincidence? Or maybe a subtle tribute? 
In any case, like a lot of low-budget independent movies, it starts to flag a little way past the halfway mark. It needed a main, super-evil baddie as a central villain, like a diabolical pimp or something like that. That would have given the movie more of a motor and a motivation for Karen&#39;s actions. On the funny side, the two girls are labeled as &quot;juveniles&quot; but they seem considerably older. Like Beverly Hills 90210 older. Or maybe, as is usually the case, movies like this are just ahead of the curve. 
Like most City Lights/PM productions, the music is by John Gonzalez, and it&#39;s excellent and adds a lot. Gonzalez contributes some of his best-ever cues here, with some funk that wouldn&#39;t sound out of place in a Mega Man video game. L.A. Crackdown - which actually got a sequel that was made the same year and further continues the adventures of Karen - may not be perfect but it&#39;s at least interesting. And that&#39;s more than you can say for a lot of movies, especially ones made with much higher budgets. We can see they were trying and putting forth effort. It&#39;s time the City Lights canon sees wider viewership.

My review was written in April 1988 after watching the film on City Lights video cassette. &quot;L. A. Crackdown&quot; (a sequel is already out in home video stores) is an effective, low-budget action picture that resembles an updated version of the B-pictures of the early 1950s. Made-for-home video entry is an okay rental item. Pamela Dixon portrays an L. A. cop who works for Social Youth Organization, trying to break up the local crack ring and save young women caught in a cycle of crime. She brings two wastrels to live with her, a young, black prostitute (Kita Harrison) who was the victim of incest, and a blonde girl (Tricia Parks) involved in a drug ring. Unfortunately, her boyfriend (Jeffrey Olsen) who is a psychiatrist is caught sleeping with Harrison, and it&#39;s splitsville. Fairlyrouine police procedure is used to finally bust the drug ring, en route to which the film stresses exploding blood packs in slow motion (way overdone). Cast is capable, fitted out with B-movie banter by prolific helmer Joseph Merhi. Pic&#39;s main failing is an unfunny, strained subplot about porno filmmaking which yields an unsatisfactory, who cares? Ending.

User reviews

L.A. Crackdown

L.A. Boredown - bloody tedious

Low rent thriller with an on the street grittiness

We can see they were trying and putting forth effort

B-level cop movie

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