To quote a recent movie that has been meme’d to death, what a picture!
And what a villain.
Even before he shows up on screen, Wings Hauser dominates Vice Squad - it is his voice which barks out the film's theme song, "Neon Slime".
Directed by Death Line's Gary Sherman, Vice Squad is a cold blast of energy.
While it would be easy to label it exploitation, there is a dead-eyed quality to the presentation that feels less interested in titillation.
Like Sherman’s cannibal opus, Vice Squad feels like a full meal - its blend of social realism, character study, police procedural, suspense thriller, and horror feels seamless.
And while the film is titled after one of the main groups of characters, Vice Squad is more concerned with the dynamic between law enforcement and the people they interact with:
The first character we meet is Princess, suiting up for work and tearfully saying goodbye to her child. And when we meet the titular group, they are always late to the party, and when they do show up, they end up inciting the film’s plot.
If this is a police procedural then it is an exercise in showing the failures of policing - all they have done is killed one man. If Princess succeeds in her goals, it will have nothing to do with the Vice Squad.
The film ends on a note of uncertainty - Ramrod is dead but nothing has changed.
While the film is not a docu-drama, the grimy photography and use of real locations gives the film a visceral, lived-in sense of truth. Not reality, but something tactile - where you can almost smell and taste the sweat, the blood, the rust…
The cast are mostly excellent.
Season Hubley brings a flinty sense of purpose and hard-won wisdom to Princess. We learn almost nothing concrete about her beyond the opening moments, but her performance is a living, breathing document of hardened pragmatism and self-reliance.
Ramrod is absolutely hypnotising - Hauser brings a malevolence and simmering rage which is terrifying.
His actions are so cartoonish (he grabs a woman while in a car and drives away with her hanging out the window), they should be laughable, but Sherman and Hauser never tip over into caricature - there is a stark contrast between his actions and the camera’s distant perspective. As viewers we are positioned as helpless witnesses to this monster.
The one blank in the cast is Gary Swanson as Tom Walsh, the vice cop.
There is something bland and familiar about this character - an aggressive and righteous white cop. It is a familiar figure from action and thriller movies past and present, played by the likes of Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington, Clint Eastwood and Walter Matthau.
In other movies, this would be the star role - the driving, active force trying to restore order to a chaotic universe. Vice Squad is not interested in myth-making.
While solid in the role,Swanson is not charismatic - it is hard when you are placed against Hubley and Hauser - but I cannot help feeling that is the point.
Walsh thinks he is the hero riding to the rescue - the lack of star power in that role could be read as the film reinforcing his lack of control, his inability to be the centre of the movie.
His anonymity ends up reinforcing the film’s sense of anticlimax - Walsh kills Ramrod, but gets nothing from it. Even Princess cannot help but point out how his violence - and by extension, the institution he represents - has accomplished nothing.
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