Simply A Masterpiece

As Good As It Gets

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

So many WTF moments, so many laughs, so much terrible. This is a great movie! Lots of fun to watch and provides more entertainment in its ineptitude than 99% of the studio movies with 1000X the budget. Classic cheese!

This film is so bad and so bizarrely weird, yet it has a lot of charm and countless involuntarily funny moments that watching it is quite amusing. Unlike the utter madness that is Birdemic, this film was made by Amir Shervan, a guy who had genuine ambition and wasn't completely insane, but rather had a total lack of understanding of the American culture, as well as the film medium as such. Also, he seemed not to care that his shots were faulty, that the direction was bad, or that abysmally low production values could not be covered up. Amir combines tremendous energy and love of filmmaking with total ignorance and lack of concern for the actual quality of the final product. He sets up ambitious shots that involve car chases, helicopters, and fight scenes with large numbers of actors, but then he inexplicably ruins them with poor direction, cinematography, or acting. Some of the extras here are among the worst in the history of filmmaking, but the director seems to be fine with their performances, if you can call them that.I will not start listing the faults of this film, because literally every scene has several things wrong with it, from screen writing to camera-work to lighting to set design to acting to directing to editing... And yet it remains a more competent and watchable film than the likes of Birdemic, and it is just tremendous fun. I believe it is largely due to the fact that the actors actually tried to make it work, and because of the director's enthusiasm. Come to think of it, Amir Shervan has a lot in common with Ed Wood. This film is enjoyably bad. Still, it is best to watch it with a group of friends so you can collectively laugh at the silliness. By the way, the sequel is very bad and I would not recommend it to anyone.

SAMURAI COP is another hilariously inept action B-movie from the guy who brought us Killing American Style. I think Amir Shervan's earlier film has the edge in terms of out-and-out cheese and comedy, but SAMURAI COP comes a close second. The title's a misnomer, brought about because there are a couple of samurai swords in the film; otherwise this is the usual cops and robbers stuff as upstanding heroes battle gun-toting criminal gang members.This film is so much like Killing American Style it feels like they were shot back to back: the movies share cast members and look and feel exactly the same in terms of staging, fight scenes, etc. The staging is staggeringly inept, with most scenes shot in single takes, and the acting is quite horrible. The main actor, Mathew Karedas, has a long hair style that swaps from being real to a woman's wig and back again as the story goes on (the story is that he had his hair cut short halfway through the production so had to wear a wig for the rest of the filming).SAMURAI COP is a film that nobody can take seriously, so the best thing to do is to sit back and laugh at it. In this respect it becomes something of a gem, an example of so-bad-it's-good entertainment. As with Killing American Style, Robert Z'Dar plays in support as the chief villain. Others must have enjoyed this movie, because a sequel followed in 2014 (!).

Joe Marshall (goofy beefcake actor Matt Hannon) is a detective trained in the ways of the samurai, and together with his affable partner Frank Washington (Mark Frazer), he goes after the many goons and thugs working for big time Japanese mobster Mr. Fujiyama.That's about it for plot in this knowingly cheesy, sloppy, and silly martial arts action movie mess, written and directed by Amir Shervan. Obviously he knew exactly what kind of movie he was making, and just had fun with it. Often, "Samurai Cop" offers plenty of bad movie charm, as it clunks along from one inept sequence to another. The acting is hilariously, endearingly dumb across the board, with Hannon as one majorly wooden hero. Frazer has many great facial reactions. The ladies present are delicious eye candy: Melissa Moore as horny cop Peggy, Jannis Farley as leading lady Jennifer, and Krista Lane as a henchwoman. Robert Z'Dar is great fun as Yamashita, the primary henchman.Marshall dispenses with inept bad guys left, right and centre; ultimately, the movie isn't always terribly funny, and gets a little tiresome, but it's still amusing enough to make it pleasant if not uproarious fare. It could have used some better pacing, but still delivers enough laughs for those B cinema enthusiasts looking to have a night of bad movies and beers.Six out of 10.