What Not To Watch: Dirty Shield (2014)

You’ve probably already figured out by the title of this post that I believe that 2014’s Dirty Shield is a terrible movie. And it is. In fact, calling the movie terrible may actually be too kind. It was that bad.

But where it failed as a movie, I believe Dirty Shield could excel as a reality television show. Hear me out…

• Bad Movie Rescue: I propose a reality show that airs scenes from Dirty Shield each week and then viewers at home have the monumental task at selecting who the worst actor is. The winner of the show would have a choice of prizes. Option 1, 25 years of acting classes. Option 2, $2.5 million but they have to sign a contract stating they will never act on stage or screen again in order to receive the cash.  Now for the sheer amount of screen time he has, Nate Teron (who plays the antagonist in the film Nick Colletti) might be the favorite to win the competition. But after personally suffering through this movie I believe everyone involved has a shot at winning this reality show concept nobody ever asked for. The competition would be fierce.

• The Plot: Dirty Shield has a pretty basic plot, highly decorated cop Nick Colletti kills a gang banger. The brother of the gang banger, Romeo Rodriguez (played unskillfully by Hugo Fernandez) wants to get revenge so he gets two of his running buddies and the trio go over to the cop’s house and rape his wife Maria (Annaliese Kirby) Months later we find out that Romeo is now serving time in prison as the DNA evidence was enough to put him away for the rape and his two accomplices show up dead. Naturally, Nick is the prime suspect in these killings with revenge being his motive. So some big wig police lieutenant hand picks Officer Roy Henderson (Otaja Abit) to go undercover, pose as Nick Colletti’s new partner and see if he can’t get Nick to open up about being a vigilante. The Lieutenant awkwardly compliments Henderson on his cajones (the figurative kind not his literal kind) and when speaking to Henderson about Nick states and I quote, “I want his dirty shield.” DING!  As you can tell, not a ground breaking plot by any means… but the actors who were responsible for executing this simple plot, instead executed the viewers. Yes… they were killing me.

• Blue Balls: One of the sub plots in the film centers around Nick and Maria’s marriage. After the trauma she suffered, Maria is not ready to get intimate with her husband again. Nick not only wants some nookie, he also was hoping at this stage of their marriage that Maria was going to start popping out little Collettis. But that is hard to do when your wife freaks out if you even tough her… so a blue balled Nick ends up going to a strip club, gets plastered and entangled in the obligatory action movie bar fight. This whole part of the story shed some light on another piss poor feature of Dirty Shield… the editing. After the incident at the titty bar, Nick goes to Dr. Sandra Patterson (Vivienne Jurado) the shrink that has been working with him and his wife to help them cope, and basically tells her he needs his wife to start putting out again. The good doctor then sees Maria and through hypnotic suggestion plants the thought that Maria needs to fornicate with her husband again ASAP. Here is where I question the editing of this film… so Nick and Maria have some candle lit sex that night, but then the next day, Nick is at the copier room at work when a female detective, whom apparently had a thing with Nick some time back, throws herself at him. To me this would have made more sense BEFORE his blue balls went away, then there would have been more tension in the air and the audience would ask the question, will Nick give in to the urges that his wife isn’t taking care of?!? Instead Nick tells the female detective to take a hike and the whole scene seemed like nothing more than a Nate Teron ego trip.

Unless someone is holding a gun to your head and demanding you watch Dirty Shield, you should avoid it at all costs. I will say this much for Dirty Shield… it was aptly named because I felt dirty after watching it. It was like I cheated on a good quality action movie, by spending time with this trashy, low rent action movie.

I may have cheated myself out of a good movie by watching a bad one, but I would never cheat the readers of Bulletproof Action out of some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Award Winning: Dirty Shield won Best Crime Drama at the 2014 Buffalo Niagara Film Festival. Obviously the BNFF is no Academy Awards, but how shitty did the other movies in that category have to be for Dirty Shield to win? Or maybe Dirty Shield was simply the only crime drama entered into the festival that year.
• Location, Location, Location: The building that was being used for the police station interior shots, looked nothing like a police station. The homes of all the characters looked like furniture showrooms. Everything was so sterile it really took away from the presentation. The actors were bad enough, you could have at least given them some realistic looking shooting locations.
• No Surprise: Dirty Shield was the last acting appearance from Nate Teron, Hugo Fernandez and the guy who played the Mayor of New York City at the beginning of the film. I wonder why?
• The End: Dirty Shield managed to screw up the end credits. How inept do you have to be to screw up something as simple as the end credits of a movie?