Street Law (1995)

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Even the Internet can't decide what this one is called.

 

Synopsis

A martial arts-trained lawyer (Jeff Wincott) is forced to fight in illicit matches after he is framed for a crime, is dismissed from his firm, and all his assets are tied up, including his clothing and furniture after he is evicted from his apartment.


Review

How can you not love it from the synopsis? Well, except the synopsis lies. Okay, I'll try to make sense of this rather nonsensical movie.

The opening shot of the film is of Jeff Wincott (star of oh, so many films I haven't heard of) waving some money in some guys face, and shouting at him. Okay. Must be import- oh, never mind, we're somewhere else now. Welcome to Street Law.

Wincott is John Ryan, who, after starting out in life robbing stores (at the age of eight, apparently), has cleaned up and become a lawyer. An ass kicking ninja lawyer who does pro bono work for native Americans. And borrows money from a loan shark. Who seems - and I could have this wrong - to be one of Ryan's best mates. Following? Good. When Ryan gets a big city scumbag off of charges of beating up a prostitute (which he is guilty of, but Ryan is that good), Ryan then arranges for the prostitute to beat the guy half to death with a baseball bat.

Now I'm not saying he didn't deserve it, but I am saying that Ryan deserved being dismissed by his law firm, losing his house, clothes, etc, etc. You know, for breaking the law.

Anyhow, Ryan's chum sells his debt (under rather violent circumstances) to mob boss, Luis Calderone (Paco Christian Prieto) who just happened to be Ryan's partner in crime as a child. Calderone then forces Ryan to fight in illegal underground cage matches, but pays him a sweet 10K for every win! And forces his girlfriend to have sex with him! And...wait...what? And this is where the plot became dislodged to the point of no return.

Jeff Wincott

You see, Calderone wants Ryan dead. Revenge I guess? So I get the cage fights. But why is he giving him vast quantities of money? And why did he make his girlfriend have sex with him? And when he lost his job they impounded his clothes (can they do that?) - but he has all his clothes in the rest of the film - and why doesn't this hot-shot lawyer have a suit that fits? - And why didn't they take his motorbike away (which is a Harley, but they had blackened out the badge for copyright reasons, I guess?) I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Regardless, I suppose - I have no answers - is it any good? Well, not really. The fight scenes are very average. They do, I guess. But it's all high kicks and punches. Mostly punches. Sort of uninspiring. The same can be said for the acting. Uninspiring.

And so low budget.

I would say, vastly improved if it made sense. And you were drunk.