Dead Bang (1989)

MOVIE REVIEW

This is an enjoyable but undeniably strange movie, with an inexplicable title. 

Don Johnson plays a detective who, early on, is seen on the hunt for a cop killer.  Over the first thirty minutes or so, the movie goes into great detail to establish how joyless and messed up his personal life is.  During that time, two of the top billed cast- Penelope Ann Miller and Bob Balaban- also make impressionable appearances. 

What then happens is that the movie gets transformed into a cross-country pursuit of a group of trigger-happy, well-funded neo-Nazis.  More to the point of strangeness, none of what we are painstakingly told about Johnson’s character’s personal life is ever again referenced, and neither of the said top-billed cast is seen again. 

Fortunately, from that point onwards, the movie makes for a gripping, if formulaic action thriller that is elevated by Johnson’s charisma, director John Frankenheimer’s craftsmanship, and some witty dialogue.  The highlight for me, though, was a series of creatively constructed scenes that are as odd as they are astonishing and- to me, at least- hilarious as well.  Here’s a link to one such scene where Johnson’s character sees a police shrink, whose evaluation of him is going to decide if he will be on the case and, maybe, on the police force as well.