Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

mklin-50006 Vice Squad is a mean, nasty, intense and sadistic B-movie. I don't mean this as a negative, because that is exactly what the movie intends to be. Vice Squad pulls no punches and is absolutely relentless. The standout performance of this movie comes from Wings Hauser's portrayal of the the psychotic and homicidal pimp RamRod. Hauser is absolutely incredible in this movie, every second he is on screen he is frightening and menacing. He always seems like he is a half second from completely losing it, even when he is "seducing" the hooker Princess, he seems like he can hardly control himself from doing something awful. RamRod is a nightmare of a human being. If he really existed, I don't care how tough or brave you think you are, the smartest thing you could do if you encountered him would be to politely get away from him. With RamRod it's not about him being tough, it's about him being truly, truly dangerous. No empathy, no remorse and no mercy. I'm not going to go into detail about the movie. I think Vice Squad, like any other movie should just unfold in front of you. I fully realize that this movie is not for everyone and if someone told me that they thought it was disgusting and there was nothing positive about it.I would understand that. That being said, if you want to watch a cat and mouse/cop chase movie, set on the seedy streets of Los Angeles that doesn't hide its true intentions and never winks at the audience. Vice Squad has the goods.

moonspinner55 Season Hubley was a very fine actress of the 1970s who somehow lost her way in the next decade, bottoming out with this cheapjack sleaze about a single mom-turned-prostitute working with the Los Angeles vice squad in nabbing a vicious killer pimp named Ramrod, eventually regretting her involvement after he escapes from police custody. Grindhouse fans will no doubt revel in the "neon slime" on display, yet Hubley is never too convincing jive-talking her way around street pimps, prosties, undercover cops and kinky johns. Amateurish, nasty and ugly. * from ****

Joey Dietrich ...still manage to be this brutally engaging?! For the longest time, I avoided this film because for some reason, I had mixed it in my head with Forced Entry (1975), as the posters looked quite similar. I finally got around to seeing Vice Squad and my jaw dropped to the floor.This film has so many cliché cop drama moments that I couldn't help but laugh hysterically... but when the story shifted gears to the more brutally realistic events of the seedy LA night life, my jaw dropped even further.Ramrod makes for one of the most menacing villains I've ever seen on screen and I would actually compare him to Daniel Day Lewis' Bill The Butcher from Gangs of New York. I had never seen much of Wings Hauser's work prior to this film, but his performance in Vice Squad put him on my map.I think the film's most defining moment for me is when Ramrod chases a battered Season Hubley down the alleyway as she clutches onto the stuffed animal she was going to give her daughter. It's blatantly symbolic and cliché, yet ultimately heartbreaking and uncomfortable.Vice Squad a prime example of a "cult film" and it's one I enjoyed immensely.On a side note, I had watched Paul Schrader's "Hardcore" a day or so prior to seeing this film. Previously, I had only seen Season Hubley in Escape From New York and though I knew she was Kurt Russell's wife at the time, I had no idea that she had such a filmography under her belt. I thought she was fantastic in both films. I wonder whatever happened to her...

Michael_Elliott Vice Squad (1982) ** (out of 4) Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) proudly works the vice squad where his main goal is bringing down a violent pimp (Wings Hauser) who has no problem torturing and beating his women. Along with the help of a prostitute (Season Hubley) they get the pimp in a string but he escapes and goes to get revenge on the woman who set him up. Now the vice squad must try and find her before the pimp does. I must admit that I was really disappointed in this thing after hearing so much about it. When the Anchor Bay DVD was released there was a good amount of people who really talked this film up as being one of the last sleaze productions before movies really started to changed. In all honesty they must have been watching another movie because if you take out the bad language you're left with a rather tame movie. Sure, there's a tad bit of brief nudity but not enough to make one call this an exploiatation movies. The violence is mostly off screen and just suggestive so there's another reason this really doesn't enter the sleaze market. I'm really not sure why this film got the reputation of being a disturbing movie because it's actually just a low-rent police drama. As a police drama it doesn't really work either because I couldn't help but think the cops here were among the dumbest people to ever be put into a film. The movie kicks off with a disclaimer about the real vice squad and I really, really hope it wasn't like what's shown in this film. I won't ruin the ending but the pimp has the hooker in a car with the police following yet they don't try to pull him over because they're worried he will kill here. So what do they do? They let him take her into an apartment and be in there with her a good ten-minutes while they're all either outside or waiting to arrive on the scene. What in the hell did they think he was going to do when he had her inside a room with no one else around? I thought Swanson was pretty good in his role as he has the perfect look for a worn down cop. Hubley wasn't too bad either but I did have a hard time believing she was one of the more popular prostitutes out on the streets. Hauser doesn't give an Oscar-worthy performance but he's so over the top that you can't help but enjoy what he brings to the film. Director Sherman at least builds up a very nice atmosphere and one really gets the dirty feeling that they're on the streets with these women. This overall mood and feel makes the film worth sitting through at least once but there's still not enough to make this a complete winner. BTW, Frank Capra, Jr. was one of the producers.