L.A. Heat has LHJ as a cop who's kind of on the edge, but has never fired his weapon on the job--which for most cops is common, but for a cop in a PM film it's absurd. So as his partners get killed off by Clarence, a cop-killing drug dealer, LHJ needs to pull out all the stops. That includes working with a drug dealer named Spyder, who also has a bone to pick with Clarence, but then when a mob boss named Sylvio also gets involved, all bets are off for LHJ, and the lack of results gets him kicked off the force. Will he be able to pull himself out of his doldrums and get his cat to stop eating his food in time to get up off the mat and take these guys down?
For a PM flick, this isn't the best, but it's not the worst. As an early PM flick though, it's fun to see how they're not quite there yet as a studio, but they're getting there. We get shootouts that are good, but not PM good. The car chases are scant, and lack the volume of car flippage later PM will have, but we can see how they'll build off of these. LHJ does what you need him to as a cop on the edge, plus I liked that they dealt with issues in how the police treat people of color in LA prior to Rodney King in a way that wasn't afraid to tell it like it is. This also had a heavy Beverly Hills Cop vibe, with a lot of the action scenes accompanied by a strong "Axel F"-esque synth score, which was fun for me to listen to. The action isn't at the volume or as inspired as what we'd see later on in the 90s from PM, and I think if we're comparing this to that standard, few DTV actioners meet that; but as studio that was still hitting its stride, and as someone who fancies himself a DTV Connoisseur, watching this knowing what PM would eventually become, I enjoyed what we had here.
Our first PM review was back in May of 2007, very early in our history, when I reviewed the Van Damme film Inferno aka Desert Heat, which I didn't know at the time was a PM flick, and which also featured Danny Trejo giving Van Damme a foot massage. We've come a long way with PM since then, as we've added reviews of some of the films they've made that bolstered up the tail end of golden age of DTV action. When we think of that '85 to '95 window where DTV action was so fantastic, '90 to '95 was almost all PM when it comes to the best of that period, and the stuff they did in the late 90s did a lot to extend that golden age a bit further. The things that we came to know PM for, the car chases with cars flipping and exploding all over the place, the inspired fight scenes with accomplished martial artists, and the stunt work that was next level, all came after this film, but you could see the seeds of it planted in this movie. Truly one of the greats, PM not only deserves to finally join the 40 Club, but with so many more PM films left to review, the 40 Club is just the start.
This is now our 4th LHJ flick on the site, but this is only the second one starring him, after Quiet Fire, another PM joint. What I liked about him here, is he was the cop on the edge, but when he was with his love interest, he was able to show the humor and charisma he had when he was on Welcome Back Kotter. I don't think we got enough of that in Quiet Fire, but it was fun to see here. In looking at his IMDb bio, he has some more PM flicks from around this early period of theirs, but other than some voice work in '93's Firepower, after Quiet Fire in '91 he really doesn't do anything more, but that is 4 more PM flicks of his between this and Quiet Fire that I need to cover, so we'll see more of him on here. Future Hall of Famer? I don't know if he'll have the numbers to get there, but I think his work in this early PM period is important enough to maybe consider it if we do get the numbers, because he does have other work beyond PM that we could do too.
You may have noticed that Joseph Merhi has been tagged for this post, but not Richard Pepin. Currently I'm only tagging one or the other of them for the films they've directed. The thinking behind that is that the PM Entertainment tag covers their work as producers, and PM Entertainment's Hall of Fame induction and now 40 Club entry covers their contributions to the world of DTV action. The thing is though, Richard Pepin was director of photography on this, and for anyone else, like say an Art Camacho or Isaac Florentine, that would be enough to get them another tag. With that in mind, it's possible that both could get a bunch more tags for any work they did on a film beyond producer--or if they were a producer on a non-PM film. This is an issue we've also run into with another producing team, Golan and Globus, and in their case they actually have their own tag separate from Cannon films, but they also don't have the 100% overlap with Cannon that Merhi and Pepin have with PM films--currently Cannon has more than Golan-Globus. Anyway, with his 10th director tag on here, Merhi joins an exclusive club of directors with 10 or more tags, which starts with Albert Pyun and his (I believe) 43, then Fred Olen Ray with 15, Isaac Florentine (I believe) and Sam Firstenberg with 13, Keoni Waxmen, Fred Williamson, and Art Camacho with 11, and then Cirio H. Santiago who also has 10. That makes Merhi the 9th to join the ten director tags club, which is almost as exclusive as the 40 Club, but also almost as exclusive as the 30 Club for just acting tags, which I believe is 8 right now. If you're wondering, Pepin is at 7 directing credits, so he's knocking on the door as well.
Finally, I want to go back to PM's enduring legacy as we celebrate this milestone of theirs. As Cannon starts to fade out in the early 90s, PM comes in and picks up the ball at that same time, filling our video store shelves and cable TV line-ups with fun actioners loaded with high-octane stunts and action effects that we don't really see on the same level with DTV actioners today. The 90s wouldn't be the 90s without their contributions, and I don't know that a site like mine would exist at the level it does without their films. While some of their movies are available to stream, ones like this are only available on low-quality YouTube uploads, which, don't get me wrong, are better than nothing, but for what PM brought, it all should be available for everyone to consume either on Tubi, or later with nice Blu-rays from companies like Vinegar Syndrome. Maybe with an LA Heat it's a boxed set of this and the sequels--and yes, this film isn't the great PM stuff that they would later be known for, but it is also nice to watch it and see where that whole thing was headed. When we compare the 90s with the 2000s, and later the 2010s, PM is a big part of why those later two decades don't come close in the sheer volume of fun DTV action classics, and it would be good if more of those classics were available in a better physical medium.
And with that, let's wrap this up. As far as I can tell, YouTube is the best way to go to catch this as of this writing. Used VHS or DVD might also be a possibility if you stumble upon it, but Amazon won't be much help, as it confuses this title with the PM TV series of the same name. There are a lot more PM flicks out there that are better than this, but as an early PM entry that gives you a sense of where this is all headed, it can be a fun sit.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097699
And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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