A movie starring Martin Kove, aka the evil Sensei from the Karate Kid movies, vrs. an Asian crime syndicate ran by Soon-Tek Oh, one of those familiar Hollywood Asians from the eighties who I remember as the head baddie from Missing in Action 2? Sounds like it should be can't miss eighties cheese but unfortunately it is no Action Jackson.
It is mostly dull by the numbers cop movie with a Vietnam back-story, which seemed to be in vogue at the time for cop movies ala Lethal Weapon. Ex Viet Nam vet and ex cop John Steele (Don't you love silly macho cop names?) takes on a drug syndicate, lead by the traitorous south Vietnamese general who almost killed him in the war, after they kill his old partner and war buddy and his family, except for his teenage daughter who Steele has to protect. There is not enough action, cheesy or otherwise, to keep things interesting. The story and a lot of individual scenes develop in such an awkward fashion at times that it seems that the version I saw may have been an edited one, although it is possibly just bad storytelling. For example a character, a friend of Steele, we have barely seen for most of the movie is revealed to be in cahoots with the evil syndicate prompting not a reaction of surprise from the audience but a reaction of puzzlement as to who this guy actually is. Supporting the editing apologist theory is a least one picture on the back of the video case of a scene which doesn't occur in the version of the movie I saw. Supporting the bad writing theory is pretty much the rest of the movie.
Most ludicrous is the syndicate's motivation in trying to track down and kill the daughter of the cop and war buddy of Steele, who was murdered early in the movie. They have absolutely nothing to gain by killing her, other than to possibly make themselves more intimidating in the eyes of the community they were intimidating in originally murdering her family i.e. saying nobody gets away from us! It really seems a bit redundant to do so seeing as they have already massacred the rest of the family, including her mother and aged grandmother and everybody is already scared of them. Maybe it is meant to be indicative of a stereotypically strong Asian work ethic or maybe it is just an obvious and lazy plot device to keep things moving beyond Steele's revenge motivation. The syndicate does go to great lengths to kill this one completely unthreatening teenage girl. As with other dumb cop movies of this era such as Cobra the baddies end up committing multiple murders and other crimes in broad daylight with impunity in front of many, many witnesses just to get to one person. The most notable scene like this is one of the most memorable and goofy in the movie, when a really bad music clip/fashion show/montage, that is bizarrely inserted into the middle of the movie, is interrupted by the gun wielding baddies who end up blowing away half of the backup dancers. They were already eighties fashion victims, why not become eighties crime victims?
There are a few memorable bits and pieces in Steele justice. The video clip massacre is one. Another is John Steele's strange proclivity for wandering around with his pet snake, most prominently in the Viet Nam prologue where, yes, he is seen sneaking commando style into an enemy based with a brightly coloured snake hanging from his neck. Strangely enough he seems to have the exact same snake, which is deadly poisonous and remarkably domesticated, as a pet 12 years later. This leads to another the movies few memorable moments, Steele's dispatching of one of the main villains in a manner that seems a precursor to the death of Bill in Kill Bill- remember the snake is called 3-step. Another memorable moment from the Nam intro is the part in which Steele appears to fire a knife from his gun. Later in the movie Steele gets his own Rocky style montage in which we get to see him train before his onslaught against the bad guys complete with him running on the beach, working out etc. complete with really bad eighties pop music. For some reason it is intercut with shots of his love interest and the teenage daughter sitting around in a kitchen not really doing anything. It is apparent here more than any other time in the movie how odd a choice Kove is to be a leading man with his thuggish looks and creepy smile. On the other side of the coin Soon-Tek Oh as the villainous general Kwan looks rather unthreatening, if not downright cuddly at times. Especially in the scenes where is he is wearing a Muumuu. Nobody wearing a Muumuu is threatening, especially not the one he is wearing, which is effeminate even by Muumuu standards.
There is an impressive B-movie cast including- Sela Ward, who played the Ex, one way or another of Dr. Richard Kimble and Dr. Gregory House as Steele's love interest and predictably brittle ex. Ronny Cox, from a lot of things, perhaps most notably as villains in no less than two Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action flicks and as the guy who doesn't come back from the trip down the river in Deliverance, as the chief of police who predictably has a chip on his shoulder about Steele's loose cannon behaviour. Al Leong, Asian Hench De Rigueur who you may have seen in movies such as Die Hard and Action Jackson, as an Asian Henchmen who predictably tries to kill Steele.
In summation, despite a few amusing moments it's boring.
It is mostly dull by the numbers cop movie with a Vietnam back-story, which seemed to be in vogue at the time for cop movies ala Lethal Weapon. Ex Viet Nam vet and ex cop John Steele (Don't you love silly macho cop names?) takes on a drug syndicate, lead by the traitorous south Vietnamese general who almost killed him in the war, after they kill his old partner and war buddy and his family, except for his teenage daughter who Steele has to protect. There is not enough action, cheesy or otherwise, to keep things interesting. The story and a lot of individual scenes develop in such an awkward fashion at times that it seems that the version I saw may have been an edited one, although it is possibly just bad storytelling. For example a character, a friend of Steele, we have barely seen for most of the movie is revealed to be in cahoots with the evil syndicate prompting not a reaction of surprise from the audience but a reaction of puzzlement as to who this guy actually is. Supporting the editing apologist theory is a least one picture on the back of the video case of a scene which doesn't occur in the version of the movie I saw. Supporting the bad writing theory is pretty much the rest of the movie.
Most ludicrous is the syndicate's motivation in trying to track down and kill the daughter of the cop and war buddy of Steele, who was murdered early in the movie. They have absolutely nothing to gain by killing her, other than to possibly make themselves more intimidating in the eyes of the community they were intimidating in originally murdering her family i.e. saying nobody gets away from us! It really seems a bit redundant to do so seeing as they have already massacred the rest of the family, including her mother and aged grandmother and everybody is already scared of them. Maybe it is meant to be indicative of a stereotypically strong Asian work ethic or maybe it is just an obvious and lazy plot device to keep things moving beyond Steele's revenge motivation. The syndicate does go to great lengths to kill this one completely unthreatening teenage girl. As with other dumb cop movies of this era such as Cobra the baddies end up committing multiple murders and other crimes in broad daylight with impunity in front of many, many witnesses just to get to one person. The most notable scene like this is one of the most memorable and goofy in the movie, when a really bad music clip/fashion show/montage, that is bizarrely inserted into the middle of the movie, is interrupted by the gun wielding baddies who end up blowing away half of the backup dancers. They were already eighties fashion victims, why not become eighties crime victims?
There are a few memorable bits and pieces in Steele justice. The video clip massacre is one. Another is John Steele's strange proclivity for wandering around with his pet snake, most prominently in the Viet Nam prologue where, yes, he is seen sneaking commando style into an enemy based with a brightly coloured snake hanging from his neck. Strangely enough he seems to have the exact same snake, which is deadly poisonous and remarkably domesticated, as a pet 12 years later. This leads to another the movies few memorable moments, Steele's dispatching of one of the main villains in a manner that seems a precursor to the death of Bill in Kill Bill- remember the snake is called 3-step. Another memorable moment from the Nam intro is the part in which Steele appears to fire a knife from his gun. Later in the movie Steele gets his own Rocky style montage in which we get to see him train before his onslaught against the bad guys complete with him running on the beach, working out etc. complete with really bad eighties pop music. For some reason it is intercut with shots of his love interest and the teenage daughter sitting around in a kitchen not really doing anything. It is apparent here more than any other time in the movie how odd a choice Kove is to be a leading man with his thuggish looks and creepy smile. On the other side of the coin Soon-Tek Oh as the villainous general Kwan looks rather unthreatening, if not downright cuddly at times. Especially in the scenes where is he is wearing a Muumuu. Nobody wearing a Muumuu is threatening, especially not the one he is wearing, which is effeminate even by Muumuu standards.
There is an impressive B-movie cast including- Sela Ward, who played the Ex, one way or another of Dr. Richard Kimble and Dr. Gregory House as Steele's love interest and predictably brittle ex. Ronny Cox, from a lot of things, perhaps most notably as villains in no less than two Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action flicks and as the guy who doesn't come back from the trip down the river in Deliverance, as the chief of police who predictably has a chip on his shoulder about Steele's loose cannon behaviour. Al Leong, Asian Hench De Rigueur who you may have seen in movies such as Die Hard and Action Jackson, as an Asian Henchmen who predictably tries to kill Steele.
In summation, despite a few amusing moments it's boring.