There are cop thrillers that sizzle, and then there are cop thrillers that fizzle. Relentless falls face-first into the latter — a film that tries to strike fear into your heart but ends up giving you mild déjà vu and a craving for something better. It’s the cinematic equivalent of reheated chili: vaguely familiar, questionably spicy, and bound to leave a mess.
Directed by William Lustig — yes, the same man who gave us the Maniac Cop series, for better or worse — Relentlesswants desperately to be a gritty, hard-boiled serial killer flick in the vein of Seven or Manhunter. Unfortunately, what we get instead is Law & Order: Extra Sleepy Unit with a splash of cable-access lighting.
The plot? Oh, sure, we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it a hundred times. A disturbed ex-cop candidate named Buck Taylor (played by Judd Nelson, because apparently James Spader was busy) is rejected from the force and decides the only logical next step is to start murdering random Angelenos. He picks his victims from the phone book, dials them up, recites a few choice words about his daddy issues, and then — boom — strangles them into the afterlife.
Nelson plays Buck with a strange blend of intensity and limp detachment. He’s got the eyes of a man who’s seen some things, but the posture of someone who’s been sitting in the same recliner for six days. He pouts, he rages, he cries in front of a mirror like he’s auditioning for a shampoo commercial written by David Fincher. There’s supposed to be menace here, but it’s all buried under layers of melodramatic goo. You don’t fear Buck. You pity him. Then you get bored of him.
Enter our heroes: Detective Sam Dietz (Leo Rossi), the rookie cop with a haunted past, and his partner, veteran homicide detective Bill Malloy, played by the gravel-voiced, nicotine-marinated legend himself, Robert Loggia.
Now this is where the movie almost comes alive.
Loggia doesn’t act — he grumbles his way through scenes like a man perpetually five minutes away from punching a vending machine. He’s the crusty old dog of the LAPD, growling through dialogue like, “This city’ll eat you alive, kid,” while lighting a cigarette and ignoring department regulations. He’s been in this rodeo before, and he wears it in every line of his weary, whiskey-aged face. You don’t watch Loggia for nuance — you watch him because he looks like he could win a bar fight using only his breath.
Unfortunately, even Loggia can’t save Relentless from itself. The script is a boilerplate murder-mystery stew with extra salt and no seasoning. Dietz has a troubled home life (because of course he does), a dead partner in his past (naturally), and a tendency to yell things like “Don’t you walk away from me!” during every tense conversation. The movie goes through the motions like it’s punching a timecard — a body here, a clue there, a shaky confrontation in a parking garage. And somewhere in there, a sex scene sneaks in like an afterthought, awkward and lifeless.
The cinematography has all the flair of a TV pilot that didn’t get picked up. Everything is bathed in that late-‘80s Los Angeles haze — not the romantic kind, just the kind that makes you squint and wonder if the camera lens needs cleaning. The city looks bleached, bland, and barely alive. At night, it tries to go noir, but it’s like someone lit the whole film with a refrigerator bulb.
And let’s talk about the soundtrack — a synthy smear of faux tension that sounds like the demo reel from a guy who got rejected from scoring Miami Vice. The music rises and falls in all the wrong places, trying to tell you when to feel something because the acting and direction sure as hell won’t.
Even the killer’s method — using the phone book to choose victims — feels laughably dated now, but it wasn’t exactly chilling in 1989 either. By that point, the whole “phone call equals death” thing had already been done to death, from Black Christmas to When a Stranger Calls. Buck Taylor isn’t scary. He’s just inefficient. He could’ve saved time with a dartboard and a rotary dial.
The kills themselves are mundane. There’s no build-up, no sense of dread. Just Judd Nelson putting on his serious face and then choking people out while muttering about his inferiority complex. You start to wish Maniac Cop would show up and liven the place up a bit.
But let’s be fair — this isn’t a terrible movie in the “how did this get made?” sense. It’s terrible in the “I forgot I watched this” way. It’s aggressively average. It leaves no impression, aside from maybe reminding you to call your cable provider and cancel Cinemax.
By the time the final confrontation arrives — Dietz versus Buck, good cop versus unhinged psycho — the film tries to whip up some suspense, but it’s already too late. We’re just watching actors go through the motions, Loggia’s raspy ghost still hanging in the background like a reminder that once, just once, this movie had potential.
Final Verdict
Relentless is a paint-by-numbers cop thriller with a stale paintbrush and a number set lifted from every better movie in the genre. Judd Nelson swings and misses at the serial killer thing, Leo Rossi acts like he’s studying for a police exam in real time, and the only saving grace is Robert Loggia, who deserves better — as do we all.
Rating: 2/5
One star for Loggia. One star for trying. Zero stars for everything else.
Put it on in the background if you’re folding laundry and want to hear someone yell “You don’t know what I’ve been through!” every ten minutes. Otherwise, skip it. Relentlessly.
