Verdict
Summary
Dead On: Relentless II doesn’t have sex and nudity, but it has the same lighting as stuff like Night Eyes 2, and it was written poorly without a trace of the humanity or pathos (or wit, for that matter) that the first movie had. The relationship scenes between Dietz and his family are forced and woefully awkward, and the dynamics between Dietz and his fellow cops on the force are nowhere near as interesting or snappy as they were the first time around.
Plot: Detective Sam Dietz is paired with a shady FBI agent to track down another serial killer terrorizing Los Angeles.
Review: A few years have passed since Detective Sam Dietz (Leo Rossi) single-handedly caught and killed Buck, the serial killer who murdered his partner. Sam’s relationship with his wife Carol (Meg Foster who returns in a cameo) and son Corey (Brendan Ryan) has suffered as Sam has plunged into his job, and now that there’s another serial killer on the loose in L.A., he isn’t to be bothered with family matters.
The killer is an ex-Spetsnaz Russian solider named Gregor (played by Miles O’Keeffe in a virtually silent role) who is on his final mission to ruthlessly take out a list of people, and Detective Dietz is left mopping up the aftermath. Dietz is joined by an FBI guy named Valsone (Ray Sharkey), who has ties to Gregor, and when Dietz begins to understand that the FBI isn’t being completely candid about who Gregor is and what his mission of death is all about, Dietz goes renegade and becomes the relentless cop he’s known for being and brings Gregor down.
This second entry in the Relentless quadrilogy is an unfortunate and lackluster sequel to a superior franchise in the annals of renegade cop movies of the late 80’s and early 90’s. If you cruised video stores and watched cable during those golden years, you were bound to watch plenty of sleazy looking sexy cop movies with people like William Katt, Shannon Tweed, Peter Weller, or any of the other “B” stars who resorted to starring in saxophone-scored motel room rendezvous private eye movies, and while those pictures had some value to bored purveyors of cheap video movies, it’s a shame when the sequel to something as good as the first Relentless had the same look and feel as the sort of sleazy garbage I’m talking about.
Dead On: Relentless II doesn’t have sex and nudity, but it has the same lighting as stuff like Night Eyes 2, and it was written poorly without a trace of the humanity or pathos (or wit, for that matter) that the first movie had. The relationship scenes between Dietz and his family are forced and woefully awkward, and the dynamics between Dietz and his fellow cops on the force are nowhere near as interesting or snappy as they were the first time around.
And where’s that temper tantrum-prone captain from the first movie? I missed him. I missed a lot of things from the first picture, and you’ll miss them too. Director Michael Schroeder is the man who made Cyborg 2 and Cyborg 3: The Recycler (which is almost as good as the first Cyborg), and screenwriter Mark Sevi specialized in writing direct-to-video sequels like Class of 1999 II: The Substitute, Fast Getaway II, and Scanner Cop II. There’s your pedigree, folks.