

Defying orders to lay-off the case, two Los Angeles vice-squad cops go after a local mobster and use unorthodox methods to achieve results.
Acting
Gould's exhausted Everyman vs Blake's feral intensity — electric mismatch.
Direction
Hyams' debut: documentary-style LA that reeks of sun-baked failure.
Cinematography
Vice squad as grime tourism — every frame feels illegally obtained.

Director
Peter Hyams
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hyams wrote it after researching actual vice cops and discovering their cases were constantly dismissed by corrupt courts.
The rare 70s cop film that treats police work as demoralizing bureaucracy — it bombed because audiences wanted heroes, not this.