Bullet Points: Excessive Force II: Force on Force
Recently while discussing the underrated 1993 Thomas Ian Griffith actioner, Excessive Force, on The Bulletproof Podcast, the in name only sequel came up in conversation.
I will be honest until I was doing the prep work for that episode, I wasn’t even aware that 1995’s Excessive Force II: Force on Force existed. But after the discussion on the show, my curiosity got the better of me and just a few days later I found myself watching Excessive Force II: Force on Force…
- A Grave Place: The movie starts at a cemetery, where local bum Ernie (played by the magnificently named Mandingo Warrior) is rummaging through the trash can looking for something to eat… do that many people bring food to this cemetery that Ernie knows he can find some good wasted food in the trash?!?! I have visited a cemetery or two in my day, but never have I brought food along, but I digress. Ernie gets some good eating and then decides to take a nap under a tree… if you want a quiet place to nap, a cemetery would definitely qualify. But that is about to change when a professional team of hired killers rolls in, preparing for a visit from some mafia types… this leads to a shootout with bullets and arrows (the one hired gun was more of a hired crossbow)! A job well done… well almost… the kill squad was so focused on their targets they missed the fact that Ernie saw it all, including a distinctive tattoo on the forearm of one of the killers a detail Ernie quickly reports to the police. Detective O’Conner takes Ernie’s statement and his captain recognizes the tattoo as a Special Forces tat and has O’Conner get the info out to the military.
- A White Whale: There is one thing that Excessive Force II has in common with Excessive Force and that is a hero with their own personal white whale. For Thomas Ian Griffith’s Terry McCain it was mobster Sal DiMarco in the original, for Stacie Randall’s Harley Cordell it is Francis Lydell (Dan Gauthier, N.Y.P.D. Mounted). Lydell was Harley’s superior in the Special Forces… he was also her lover… and he is also the guy who shot her in the head and thought she was dead. Since that fateful night that left Harley with a bullet fragment in her skull, Lydell and the rest of the team went off the grid and became ghosts. But now this report of the tattoo gives Harley, who now is a military investigator, hope she may finally be able to exact some revenge… so instead of going to New York for surgery to remove the bullet fragment from her head, she is off to Los Angeles to get her white whale.
- A Hole Other Problem: Detective O’Conner goes to the cemetery to see if he can find anymore clues… what he finds is trouble in the form of Lee (James Lew, Best of the Best) and some fellow gang members. Apparently the cemetery is their turf and they don’t take too kindly to cops on their turf. I have visited a cemetery or two in my day, but never have I encountered a gang claiming that it was their turf, but I digress. O’Conner ends up in an open grave and before that becomes an appropriate home for him… Harley Cordell shows up and kicks ass taking out Lee and his boys with ease and establishing her action hero skills. Once she helps O’Conner out of the hole, the two go looking for Ernie, but Lydell’s right hand man, Yates, already found poor Ernie and Ernie won’t be able to provide Harley or anyone else with any further details. Yates spots Harley as he is covertly leaving the scene of the crime and knows his boss is not going to be happy with this development.
- A Rock and a Hard Place: Lydell realizes Harley could prove to be a problem for their next job and it is a big one. Lydell and his team have been hired by mob boss Mr. Franco (Dan Lauria, Stakeout) to take out a rival mobster who has agreed to testify against Franco and is currently under FBI protection in an undisclosed location… Lydell has Yates and Martinez, another member of his team, focus on getting rid of Harley, while he preps for the Franco job…. Yates and Martinez find out where Harley is staying and plan their attack and to say it doesn’t go as planned would be an understatement… Yates misses with his arrow, Martinez ends up dead, but life is not all a bowl of cherries for Harley either.
- A Prescription for What Ails Her: The bullet fragment in Harley’s head often causes disorienting headaches for her. She has a prescription to help alleviate the symptoms, but she is running low. Fortunately she has an old boyfriend in Los Angeles, Dr. David Prender. So Harley shows up at David’s office and seduces him into refilling her prescription… while he realizes he has been used, he is happy to see Harley again… but becomes quite unhappy with her after she starts going all vigilante on her quest for revenge. This vigilante justice also has Harley wanted by the police…
- A Convenient Development: Things suddenly are looking up for Lydell and his crew, because Harley turns herself in. And the police station Harley goes to is the same police station the FBI is holding the mob informant in the bowels of the building. So Lydell and what’s left of his crew, have some bombs go off around the station and in the chaos slip inside the station disguised as cops themselves… Lydell does get his target, but when he doesn’t get Harley he takes off… which leads to a car chase and the final showdown between Lydell and Harley!
Creatively speaking there was no reason that this movie could not have been a stand alone film called Force on Force, but I assume the original Excessive Force must have pulled some strong video rental numbers and they were hoping to capitalize on that success here.
I am sure some who rented Excessive Force II or found it on their favorite premium cable channel were disappointed that The Notorious T.I.G. was nowhere to be found. Knowing that information going in, I avoided that disappointment and was able to enjoy the movie for what it was.
I hope you can enjoy these Bonus Bullet Points for what they are…
- Favorite Quote: “Go suck on a wet door knob!”
- Full Moon Superstar: Prior to getting a shot as a full blown action hero in Excessive Force II, Stacie Randall had quite the run with Full Moon Entertainment. Randall was in Puppet Master 4, Ghoulies IV and Trancers 4 and Trancers 5.
- Lydell’s Quote: “Action is faster than reaction.”
