Irresistible Force was a failed TV pilot featuring Stacy Keach as a veteran cop close to retirement and looking for a cushy gig so he can make it to retirement safely. Part of his plan is to request a female partner, because they're statistically less likely to be reckless. Problem is, he gets Cynthia Rothrock for his partner, and reckless is her middle name. When the two have to go to the mall to pick things up, they end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the place is being taken over by a baddie and his terrorist group. Now it's Die Hard in a Mall with only Rothrock on the inside and Keach on the outside to stop them. The terrorists won't know what hit them.
This is pretty sweet for what it was, a good old fashioned 90s TV movie actioner. Not sure why this wasn't picked up by CBS, because it would have ran well on a Saturday night with shows like Martial Law and Walker, Texas Ranger; or maybe on a Friday as a lead-in to Nash Bridges. Keach and Rothrock have all the chemistry you need, they both also hold up their end of the deal in terms of the action, all you needed was a stable of character actor heavies to come in each week with some villainous plot that Rothrock and Keach need to root out and stop. We'd be watching reruns on Tubi or FilmRise along with Renegade and Hunter. Missed opportunity for sure.
One of the things we talk about in the DTV world is how you have big screen actors that float down into DTV, and then you have stars that start in DTV and never seem to be able to crossover into Hollywood leading roles, and Rothrock falls into that latter category. A TV show like this is the kind of near miss that you look back on and say "ah, if only!" Just the same, Rothrock has had one of the best DTV action careers period, and the hours of enjoyment she's given us in her great performances over the years isn't something to ignore, it's just hard not to think what if she was on a major network TV show with millions of people watching her every week. I feel like it still could happen though, considering the explosion of TV shows out there now, and how network TV is going in more of the action/detective realm. Cynthia Rothrock as a Navy cop on NCIS Philadelphia? Count me in!
We don't often see Stacy Keach and his fantastic mustache on here, as he tends to do more Hollywood pictures, but when we do he's usually fantastic, and this film is no exception. I just loved the presence he had, every scene he was in was great. You have to wonder what it was that caused them to not run with this. Was it too violent? Was Die Hard in a Mall seen as too derivative? Even if it wasn't a weekly series, multiple TV movies would have worked too for the early 90s. Either way, you can't go wrong with the Keach, the people making this had to feel like they were a shoo-in here, and to not have it get picked up had to have been a shock.
Speaking of Die Hard in a Mall, in the 90s there were so many Die Hard paradigms in films, so I could see how this one would have felt derivative, especially since the baddie had a distinct Hans Gruber quality to him. When I look at any Die Hard-esque flicks, I look for what new they bring to the table, and this gives us some sweet Rothrock fights--especially one where she uses Pan Fu in a kitchen supply store to dispatch her baddies; and then married with the no-nonsense just wants to get his pension Keach who knows how to get stuff done, it does transcend the material for me. By the same token, there is a lot of well-worn territory here, not just with the baddie, but the henchmen, the cat and mouse game, things like the bombs and terrorist demands. I can see how people wouldn't have been as enamored with this, which I think is too bad.
Here's a great example of that well-worn territory, the baddie giving a message on multiple TV screens all stacked up. Okay, I guess after all this I can see how a studio may have passed. It's a shame though, it had so much potential. I mean, were Walker or Marshall Law any less derivative? Were their storylines that groundbreaking? Walker was just an omnipotent Chuck Norris driving around in a pick-up truck beating people up. I'm sure if I went through the episodes of that show I'd find the multiple TV cliches used, right?
All right, before this turns into an indictment of network TV in the 90s, we might as well wrap this up. This is a fun watch, even if it is a bit derivative. Rothrock and Keach bring it, and sometimes that's all you need, it's okay if the script is paint-by-numbers after that.
For more information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107229
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