Overrated

hyped garbage

Beautiful, moving film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A strong sense of tension and perversity loom over this paranoid cop-thriller starring B-movie veteran, Wings Hauser as a compassionate policeman turned maniacal madman, Arliss Ryder. The setting is the grimy streets of Los Angeles, California (in the near future perhaps?), and a violent crime is committed every four seconds. After Ryder is wounded in the line of duty, he is approached with the proposition to join a special division of the precinct called 'Strike Squad'. Little does he know that S.Q.U.A.D. (Scum Quelling Urban Assault Division) is comprised of wounded cops that are part of an experiment headed by a sadomasochistic police chief (G. Gordon Liddy). Members of 'Squad' are implanted with a device at the base of the spine that can release man's primordial animal instincts turning them into unstoppable killing machines. Unfortunately, the botched plan results in madness followed by self-mutilation and eventual suicide. Time is running out for Ryder as he must save his sanity and his relationship, and expose the madmen behind the scheme. This is dominated by terrific performances and an urban nightmare based atmosphere full of psycho-sexual realism. Hauser is at his most intense, and G. Gordon Liddy plays an unusually wacky character. Other memorable performances include; Alex Cord as a piercing-eyed police captain, Sy Richardson as Ryder's laughing-mad partner, Marie Chambers as an evil doctor, Lisa Robins as an aggressive prostitute, and Brion James as a demented reverend who sets fire to a pimp while preaching to his freakish followers. Ultimately, every character in this movie exhibits their own brand of darkness and insanity. This is truly a crazy film with swift direction by Gregory Dark (who's good at this sociopath satirical stuff) that never lets up on the sizzle and sleaze! Its a rare B-movie treat worth watching if you can find it in its unrated director's cut.

"Street Asylum" has G. Gordon Liddy dropping pants for a whipping delivered by a dominatrix, Brion James is a maniacal street preacher, and Wings Hauser is in full intense mode, yet the film fails miserably. The story of a special police "Strike Squad", made up of violent cops, controlled by an electronic implant, could have worked, but there are too many problems with "Street Asylum". Character development is nil, Liddy and James pop up once in awhile in scenes that seem totally improvised, and almost every night scene is so dark, you will wonder what is going on. Instead of watching, you could create a game, counting the number of times the word scum is used. Sure it's bizarre, but unfortunately it's also bad. - MERK

"This Cop Isn't Losing His Mind...It's Being Taken From Him!" The always cool Wings Hauser portrays Detective Arliss Ryder, a cop on the beat working the seedier side of Hollywood. With crime rampant in the streets, Ryder is tapped by Captain Bill Quinton (Cord) to be a part of a new task force called Strike S.Q.U.A.D. (Scum Quelling Urban Assault Division). Every cop in the SQUAD has a secret microchip in their spine that makes them more aggressive. This causes conflict between Ryder and his wife. Arliss is teamed with the maniacal Joker (Richardson) and his non-stop cackling and downright insanity cause tension between them.Ryder wants to find the man who shot him and the conspiracy goes all the way to the top. How does it connect to the mayoral candidate Jim Miller (Liddy) and how does Reverend Mony (James) fit into all this? One of the flaws of the movie is that it needed more Liddy. There is a severe lack of the infamous jailbird and Watergate lawbreaker. He is entertaining as Miller in his first feature film. It is such bizarre casting, we wanted to see more of G. Sy Richardson almost steals the show as Joker. Wings is more of the straight man to these shenanigans. However Wings' character arc is more interesting.Interestingly, Street Asylum bears a resemblance to Repo Men (2010). Hauser and Richardson parallel Jude Law and Forest Whitaker in that film. Both take place in a futuristic city where technology is implanted in the body. Coincidence? We think not.Street Asylum shares the aspects of other Gregory Dark work, in the fact that it is grimy and bleak. Let's not forget Dark's recent triumph, the Kane vehicle See No Evil (2006).To learn about Wings Hauser and his long career, please visit our friend The Direct To Video Connoisseur for an informative and entertaining time! For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

She is long in the tooth these days, but in Street Asylum, she is dressed like a hot dominatrix under a trench coat when she visits E. Gordon Liddy's office and proceeds to punish this bad boy of Watergate breakin fame. I am at odds why Liddy even accepted this role to be dominated by a mere woman when his life is punctuated with prison daliances and scary stuff that would make any normal man cring with fear. But there he is, ordered to drop trou, by the very beautiful, Hispanic Vasquez of Playboy and Victoria's Secret fame and gets a bona fide ass whipping which sends him into convulsions of ecstacy and sensual pleasure. I guess because it IS G. Gordon Liddy this all makes sense. Sort of. s/a