Alright, so it’s a little bit dated in overall visual quality. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice - most people aren’t watching DVD quality movies from back in ‘91 through streaming services on their big 4K-capable devices. Still, it’s totally a passable watching experience unless you are real stuffy about things - it’s just a bit of that lower res quality as opposed to some of the real old flicks I’ve watched with actual degraded quality and tears and smudges and the likes. Still, it’s as good a time as any to mention it, and perhaps throw out the bit about how some of the language is a bit dated for the modern sensibilities - I’m fine with it, but considering the amount of people who cast worrisome glares at things like The Monster Squad because of it’s language, it’s only fair it gets mentioned here because there’s obviously more who might get offended by it than I would think. It’s also, as one would anticipate by the R rating, not a movie for kids - there’s a brief bit of topless action in there, but between the language and violence, drug references and general interactions despite having a kid in it for the later portion it’s certainly not geared that way.
Following those sort of mature-oriented vibes, you’ll find that even the main characters have it seeded into them. Not much in this world - including the kid character - is a bright, cheerful, totally good and innocent thing. There’s blackmailers, cheaters, drug users, criminals, bribers, murderers, and every shade of grey around them floating about in here. The main character even comes off as a bit “not good” in that sense, feeling a bit like a dead beat or overall just not a nice person to be around. It gives the movie more of an almost noir feel, in that it doesn’t necessarily have any character the shining beacon of good, and you get the impression that you’re just choosing the character who at least is doing “right” things even if they aren’t the best person out there. Funnily enough, this sort of helps emphasize some of the buddy cop moments, as despite both of them being perhaps not great people, when they start joking around with each other and acting the parts it feels surprisingly genuine and brings some levity to a dark-filtered view of the world. It does this job quite well, because otherwise one would expect this movie and it’s outlook to be incredibly depressing, and yet instead here it is being entertaining as it can be.
The plot might not be the most extravagant. The mystery after finally given enough threads plays out as you’d expect - but the movie also doesn’t really try to twist or turn the plot in that manner. It gives you A, fills you in until you see the destination B, and then takes the occasional side path to fill out things for a more action packed end. That being what it is, and even with a foreseeable close, it manages to make the trek fun to go through. You know a baddie when you see them, wonder slightly about a characters backstory, wonder what the good or bad guys will do next - it largely uses that mystery to just spin up the thriller side of it more, adding tensions as opposed to making you actually ask questions or pull out your flow-chart tracking string lines and cork board posters.
