SHAKEDOWN Breakdown.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096087/

Peter Weller is a scrupulous public defender with woman problems by night and civil liberty problems by day. Sam Elliott is a distant acquaintance of his -- he's an undercover cop 24/7, with a raging boner for dispensing his own brand of PLAID JUSTICE.

In "Shakedown," they team up to take out the trash -- corrupt cop trash, that is, and any other form of refuse that gets in their way. Because in New York, in the 80s, there was no such thing as recycling.

Sam Elliott couldn't give a fuck about recycling, unless it's recycling JUSTICE.

Sam Elliott doesn't have time for due process. He only has time to shoot, kill, and explode EVERY MOTHER-FUCKER who pisses him off.

If these sentences have no connecting theme or purpose beyond Sam Elliott, it's because I'm replicating the film's actual structure.

Those cops who take the meddling Peter Weller hostage? DEAD. The two muggers who confront Sam Elliott at Coney Island? REALLY DEAD. And Coney Island? Sam Elliott just gave it back to the Atlantic.

Peter Weller solves the case, defends the weak, and gets the woman. Sam Elliott grenades airplanes while dangling from their wheels over the World Trade Center.

I SHIT YOU NOT. (Because you're so baffled by the mental image of Peter Weller getting the woman, right?)

"Shakedown" is the only movie I've ever seen that actually uses its tagline ("Whatever you do... don't call the cops!") as a thesis sentence. Every scene, every karate chop, every flying car, and every Sam Elliott-inspired, massive city-block-consuming explosion reinforces writer/director James Glickenhaus's argument that you should never ever call the cops.

Cuz they might show up in blue jeans.