Absolution - Maybe Not So Much

Possibly I should have known, when I paid $5.90 for this movie, that it wasn't going to be the best Richard Grieco movie I'd ever seen, but sometimes there are hidden gems in those forgotten archives. The fact that it had a 3.1 IMDB rating gave me a little more pause, particularly since that rating was bolstered by the 18-29 year old male category (almost certainly because Jaime Pressly gets naked). More than 30% of users rating the film gave it a 1. Though I'm sure that's far from unheard of, I don't recall ever having seen quite such a preponderance of single-star ratings before.

I'm not going to go so far as to say this movie was a 1, but I didn't finish it. And, you may recall, I went on and finished Against the Law. Most of the screen time in this movie went to the younger generation--specifically, to a handful of young male "cadets" who didn't seem to get fully dressed very often. They didn't do a whole lot for me, though, and apparently I wasn't alone--women gave this film an average of 1.8 stars.

Though Grieco's role was significant, we didn't see nearly as much of him as we did Mario Lopez and his scantily-clad squadron. And, Richard's character (the despotic and possibly somewhat crazy commanding officer) was a bit over the top, barking and shouting more than he spoke.

I'm slowly working my way through Richard's whole catalog, but I can't in good faith recommend this one--unless you happen to be an 18-29 year old male, in which case you'll probably find it mediocre.

Richard Grieco's Against the Law in the Running for the Worst Movie I've Ever Seen

Could just be personal preference. For many years, The Three Amigos held that place of honor, and I know that many people enjoyed that one.  It did, in fact, have three funny scenes--which puts it three virtues ahead of Against the Law. 

Possibly the company that put together the DVD for this movie recognized the fact that it didn't have a lot to offer for real, because the cover is a bit misleading.  For example, it's got two pictures of Grieco on the cover.  This one is the largest photo on the cover and prominently displayed in the upper left-hand corner:

It's a pretty picture and probably one that catches a certain number of eyes even if the browser doesn't recognize Richard Grieco.  There's just one problem:  it's not from this movie. In fact, I'm pretty sure (couldn't swear to it) that this photo is actually the same one that appears on the cover of the Booker television series on DVD. 

Maybe it's not actually from Booker--maybe it's just a press photo of Richard Grieco and it's as fair game for this movie as it was for the after-market low-budget production company that put out Booker. 

Thing is, it LOOKS like Booker.  This picture doesn't look the slightest little bit like Richard Grieco in this movie.  In Against the Law, he looks more like this little photo to the right here.

It's a little blurry because I had to enlarge it quite a bit to post it here.  It's at the bottom center of the cover and even in its original size and format, it's not a very clear photo.  Not to be too cynical, but I do somewhat suspect that they didn't WANT us to know before renting or buying this movie that Richard Grieco looked a bit like Keifer Sutherland in his puffy drug days throughout this film, or that he had some high, square hair going on that would have done Elvis Presley proud.

They also seemed to want us to believe that the variety of hot blonds pictured played a much larger role in the movie than they did.

It's not all about looks, though.  The characters were, across the board, downright odd. There was no one to get attached to. In fact, by the end of the movie when Rex (Grieco's character) faces the other main character for a shoot-out, it's not at all clear whom we're supposed to be rooting for.  In fact, I was largely indifferent as to the survival of either.

Possibly the most interesting thing about this film was that Rex had a southern accent some of the time.  I spent much of the movie trying to decide whether Richard was slipping out of character or Rex as faking the accent and inconsistent with it.