Bullet Points: The Sweeper
When C. Thomas Howell first stepped foot on the set of To Protect and Serve, I wonder if he knew then that he was on the ground floor of his professional relationship with PM Entertainment.
Howell appeared in several films for the Richard Pepin and Joseph Mehri run company over the years including The Big Fall, the abysmal Hot Boyz, Pure Danger (which Howell also directed) and the subject of this edition of Bullet Points… 1996’s The Sweeper.
- Flashback: The movie starts off by giving us the backstory of our central character Mark Goddard via flashback. A teenage Mark (played by Max Elliott Slade of 3 Ninjas fame) is doing a ride along with his cop father Dale (Jeff Fahey, Parker Kane) and Dale’s partner Sean. The two LAPD cops are having a debate over raising children, but before you know it we get the sort of attention grabbing action set piece that PM Entertainment is known for… this one involving a chase that ends with the cop car (that has Mark in the backseat) driving off the pier and into the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately for Mark, his father is able to save him, but as he is recovering from that near death experience back at home, something even more traumatic happens… some guys show up and kill Mark’s dad, mom and sister.
- Following in the Footsteps: The movie fast forwards to adult Mark (C. Thomas Howell, Red Dawn), who is now an undercover cop with the LAPD. It is quickly established that Mark Goddard is not a “by the book” cop and has the reputation of being something of a renegade. That reputation is proven correct when we see Mark hang a guy who they were trying to collar for stabbing women at ATMs and then beating the crap out of a child molester at a shopping mall. Needless to say Mark’s superiors aren’t happy with him and then Mark does what any maverick cop would do after an ass chewing… he goes to the cop bar in town and starts drinking.
- If You Ever: …wanted to see C. Thomas Howell get a blow job from a woman he picked up at a bar with the caveat that he had to sing the Post Honeycomb Cereal jingle first then this is NOT the movie for you because moments before this interesting trade off is about to happen things take a turn as Donald Molls (Ed Lauter, Death Wish 3) shows up and offers Howell’s character Mark Goddard a chance to join a vigilante group that has secret federal funding known as the JI (that stands for Justice Incorporated, if you were wondering). The JI is made up of former cops who all had at least nine kills in the line of duty. They are secret fraternity devoted to sweeping the trash off the streets without any constraints from the pesky legal system.
- Welcome to the Club: Mark Goddard accepts his JI invite and he is immediately given an assignment to take out a small crime organization that in addition to being linked to 12 murders in Los Angeles is also peddling crack to school kids. Mark goes in undercover as a buyer… what unfolds from this is pure PM magic. One of the bad guys runs out of the building and hops in his car, which prompts Mark Goddard to give chase as their two vehicles weave in and out of traffic on a busy stretch of road, causing damage to numerous cars along the way. Then a truck carrying compressed gas cylinders comes into play and our bad guy proves he is one hell of a precision shot with his uzi…. it is even more impressive when you consider he is driving and the speed he is travelling at. Now we have explosions all over the road, but Mark Goddard remains in hot pursuit… and I really mean HOT pursuit, because Goddard manages to jump his car through fire… setting the car ablaze in the process! Once the flames are out on Goddard’s car we get a variation on the old saying, “live by the sword, die by the sword” and the chase ends in spectacular fashion. This scene alone makes The Sweeper worth watching.
The third act of the movie finds Mark getting in deeper with Justice Incorporated and then we get a nice twist at the end. The twist lays the groundwork for one more big action set piece filled with even more vehicular mayhem. Because if there is one thing that I have learned, it is there is never such a thing as too many cars being destroyed or too many explosions in a PM Entertainment film… especially one directed by Joseph Merhi himself.
And there’s never such a thing as too many bullet points, so here’s some Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Face: Felton Perry of RoboCop fame plays Foster, one of the members of Justice Incorporated.
- Game Clock: At 59:56, Mark Goddard objects to Molls’ assistant Rachel Gill (Kristen Dalton, Jack Reacher) accompanying him to Mexico for his second JI assignment. At 1:05:35, Mark is joining Rachel in the shower of their Mexican motel room.
- Recycling: On Mark and Rachel’s road trip down to Mexico, I couldn’t help but notice a wide shot that appeared to be recycled from 1994’s Zero Tolerance.
- Nice Hat: C. Thomas Howell rocks a House of Pain hat at various points in the film.
