Original Title: |
Omega Cop
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Alternative
Title(s):
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John Travis, Solar Survivor - claims IMDb (I want to see proof of this). | |
Year
of Release:
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1990 |
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Duration:
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85 minutes |
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Country
of Origin:
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Tagline(s): |
The year is
1999. John Travis is the toughest cop alive... He's the only cop alive!
- US VHS
(He is NOT the only cop alive, and if he was, surely saying he is the
toughest cop would be a moot point!) |
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Reviewed
Version Rating:
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Review: |
Let me see,
we
have had a Maniac Cop, a Violent Cop, a Beverly
Hills Cop, even a Kindergarten
Cop, in fact we have had every damn type of Cop
you can think of, so why not an Omega Cop?
Omega literally means the “Last O” and is often
used to
denote the last, the end, or the ultimate limit (thanks Wikipedia). Of
course,
the word Omega has had plenty of cinematic outings (Omega
Man, Omega Factor, Buio Omega). Brunging the words together It makes good sense.
It’s a nice title that is both easy to remember and also so
very deep in meaning.
Well, maybe it’s not very deep, but compared to the actual
movie, the title is a
masterpiece. Yes, this is a tale of the last cop. Not the last cop on
Earth,
maybe not even last cop in America, but the last cop in Stockton,
California.
In fact, he isn’t even technically the last cop in
I like our lead actor Ronald L. Marchini (or Ron Marchini as he's credited here). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s a great actor, not even a good one, but he seems really likeable. I reckon he’s a friendly guy in real life, somebody you could have a beer with (although I imagine he likes to reminisce about “the good old days” when drunk). The problem is, he just seems a bit too slow for this film, not while fighting but while running. You see, nobody checked to see what Ron looks like when he runs, and he spends at least half this film either running after criminals or running away from them. He may have a squeaky clean smile and boyish charms, but he’s 45 (I believe), and it shows. He can still take on 15 criminals at a time and come out a winner, but his top running speed is humiliating, and his running style is laughable. I’m no sprinter, but every time I saw Ron running I had to crack a smile, but at the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about? Thanks Ron, for making me smile. And that (making me smile) is the one thing that this film has in its favour. It’s a low budget PA that plays it straight. It’s just a simple and pointless plot with basic but solid camera work, extremely conservative editing and rough acting. It come so close to being worthless, but somehow little touches keep it from drowning. There are a couple of nice cameos, some ultra cheesy music, some superbly bad one-liners, and of course Ron and his three groupies, whom you will hear about so very soon.  So I bet you are all now desperate to find out what happened to society? No, it’s not nukes, it’s recently-fashionable global warming, or as they used to say in the early 90’s, the Greenhouse Effect and the depletion of the Ozone Layer. Thanks Mr. Voice-Over guy. How civilization would collapse as it has here is not very clear, but a weird and totally unfounded side effect of solar radiation in the film can account for a lot of it. Every so often there are solar flares (though only once in the film) and just a small time under the bright sun will give you a disease. Slowly your skin turns a burnt-black, and then I presume you die, but it’s all a bit weird. The way it’s discussed in the film it’s claimed that this radiation turns people into barbarians (or Scavengers as the credits call them), yet none of the bad guys seem to be burnt. I guess it’s just some kind of plot hole. Claiming the radiation addles minds was an unusual call. So after our voice-over, we get to meet the stars of the show. Down in a bunker hidden safely underground is Prescott (yes, yes, Batman himself, Adam West) and the rest of what's left of law and order in the future (or at least in Stockton California). We only see one room (filled with computers) and we only see a handful of people, but I'm under the impression that the bunker is quite sizeable. Of the people we do see in the bunker (bar our hero), the only two that are of any importance are Prescott, the serious and exceedingly grumpy commander, and his assistant, a blonde woman called Sanders who seems to have a crush on John Travis, the hero of the piece, played by Marchini. From the safety of the bunker Prescott sends out the last remaining cops on missions to try and keep at least some form of law and order in the surrounding area. Today's mission? Slavers! Someone phones in a tip-off of where the next slave auction is being held, so Prescott sends Travis and his "goons" to sort it out. Travis and Prescott seem to have a real hate for each other (I would hate Prescott too, he complains and bullys everybody) but the desire for a civilized society seems to hold the chain of command together (I imagine nobody's getting paid, it's all for rations).   I imagine everyone begged Ron not to wear that top, but he insisted.   Ron presses random buttons and pretends to know what he is doing while Sanders checks out some highly detailed maps (hastily sketched by the prop department five minuted before). So
Travis heads off with his
three cop buddies to sort out the slavers and hang the auctioneer! They take two jeeps and we get to see them
driving around to an "Oldies"
music cassette that Sanders gives to Travis. The music is Beach Boys in
style (no information on the credits), and it's not so bad. I actually
remembered the tune from when I
saw the film years ago, so it can't be that bad. At least it's
different from your typical PA. There are lots of abandoned industrial
buildings to
give an atmosphere of desolation, and they pass a couple of dead bodies
by the road.
    "Do you like oldies?"   The cops park up around the corner from the slave (think slave women) auction. After some joking around, some discussion on how to handle the situation, and a lot of cocking of weapons, they decide to dive right in. There is quite a crowd of mucky faced patrons at the sale, and a lot of strategically placed men with weapons who work for the boss, Wraith (Chuck Katzakian in his third and final film). One of the women on sale will become one of Travis' three groupies. I'm probably doing women a great disservice here, but for ease of use, and comical effect (and because I'm actually not sure which woman is which), she's getting the nickname of G1 (get it?). The cops surround the auction and Travis runs onto the stage and smacks the auctioneer, Norm ( D.W. Landingham, who stars as a different character in the sequel Karate Cop) in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. So they now have about 100 people surrounded. Now what?       Norm tries to raise bids for G1. Face paint guy is one of Wraiths top men.     Yeah,
you guessed it. The
stand-off doesn't last long. Someone fires a shot and the action
begins. Lots of shooting, lots of people running around and lots of
slow-motion camera work. Not a bad little action scene. Travis proves
to be good with his gun and also pretty good with his
fists (of course). He may be getting old but he's a real-life martial arts expert.
Unfortunately, his cop buddies aren't so skilled, and all get shot down
(in slow-mo).
  Wraith (looking like a reject from the Village People) and one of his other top men (with a perm).         Lot's of Slowwwww-motion. Travis
does a good job but
he can't take on everybody (at least not yet) so he decides to leg it
back to the jeep. Wraith and his top goons chase him, but nature
decides to intervene and the world is troubled with a solar flare.
Obviously, staying out under the sun is not an option, so everybody
heads for the nearest shelter. Travis finds himself in a big warehouse
and manages to sneak out the back when the flare dies down, and get
back to his jeep to inform Prescott about what's happened. Grumpy old
Prescott is worried that Travis may have suffered some of those
radiation burns that turn people crazy and refuses to let Travis back
in the bunker, but he still wants Travis to continue in his job and to
follow orders.
    Run Travis run!     Travis gains blood on his hand and face from somewhere! Travis is obviously angry about this. He takes out some funny-looking gun (which I believe is fake) and heads back to the slave auction. Wraith and everybody has scampered, leaving only the dead bodies behind. What does Travis do? Well he makes a pose and screams in the air "Wraith! It's not over yet!"  "Wraith! It's not over yet!" he screams (with a lot of help from an echo effect). Cut to a bit later on in the day, and something very special has happened. Travis has had a change of clothes. This may not seem special, but he's the only character who is allowed such luxuries. Even Adam West doesn't get to mix his wardrobe up. He's even cleaned up that blood. How come nobody else is allowed a wash? Is there a water shortage? Nobody really mentions it until much later, and then only in passing. Despite the fact that Prescott is not letting him back in the bunker, Travis still wants to deal with Wraith, so he's following some of Wraith's men in his jeep (gasoline is apparently free out here). It turns out that G1 has been re-captured by the gang, who are heading back to wherever their base is. Travis pulls up, gets out and makes it clear he wants a Wild West-style showdown. The two main goons (Norm and Facepaint Guy) run off to let the nobody's deal with Travis. There's a pause, one of the men makes a move and Travis shoots them all in a second. Cheesy, but nice. The girl is saved and Travis has his first groupie. "Who are you?" she asks. "John Travis, Policeman. Do you like oldies?" he replies, referring to his music collection. "How old are you?" she quips as they drive off.       "Do you like oldies?" Another
call to Prescott
results in another refusal of entry, so Travis decides to go and pick up
some supplies from Slim's store, leaving G1 to look after the jeep.
Slim (played by the reasonably well known Troy Donahue)
has a few goods for sale in a mucky old warehouse, including tins of beans and boxes of cornflakes that must be
many years old (Travis was 12 years old when the disaster started). Slim looks like he
may have some disease or similar. His good-looking daughter sits at the
side and watches over proceedings. While Travis is browsing, some
lowlife threatens Slim, so Travis steps in and sends him packing. Slim
is impressed and asks Travis to look after his daughter and take her to
the mountains 2,000 miles away where there are lakes still containing fresh water. Travis
doesn't fancy it, he has a job to do here.
    Slim's. Quite the opposite of Fat Sam's. Negotiations
don't last
long, as the guy Travis kicked out returns with a group of friends for
revenge. Slim is killed, but Travis whips out that unusual gun from
earlier and kills half of the group with one shot! Travis and the girl,
now christened G2, run off. Cue a short chase scene and a nice fight
with some of the
thugs allowing Travis to show off his martial arts skills. They meet up
with G1 at the jeep and head off to find somewhere to rest.
      Kick in the groin No1 Where to
hide for the
night? How about the baseball stadium? Hmm, I wonder who has been
perfectly manicuring the grass all these solar-radiated years?
Certainly not the comical skeleton who can be found in the locker room.
  Who cut's the grass? Finally, we get to check out Wraith's base. Where would you hang out if you were the evil overlord? How about city hall? Surely some kind of grand, historic building? Well, Wriath's not picky, so he's happy at the local junk yard, surrounded by rusting wrecks. One of the other women from the auction (she was sold for $145 but somehow ended up back in Wraith's possession) is tied up there. After some exceedingly seedy licking of armpits (freshly shaved!) by Norm, they kill the girl. Wraith's voice is deep and weird. The freak drinks the girl's blood and passes the leftovers to Norm. "Next time I want this filled with Travis' blood." Norm goes a little crazy and starts chanting. "Travis' blood! Travis' Blood!"   If it isn't a quarry its a junkyard. When did she have time to shave her armpits?     "Travis' blood! Travis' blood!" This next scene is mostly pointless. While driving along with G1 and G2, Travis notices a scavenger. "I think that guy's got my hat," says Travis, who stops and chases after the guy, leaving the women behind. Is his hat really so important? The guy meets up with a gang. Travis follows for a couple of pointless minutes and then confronts them. Another fight. Another victory for Travis. On his way back to the jeep he finds another woman (hitherto known as G3), this time one who has been abused by the gang Travis just defeated. She seems pretty beat-up so he decides to take her to the doctor.   Kick in the groin No2   Doctor
Latimer (Stuart Whitman,
our final well-known face) is an interesting character in that he acts
friendly and sane, but I see madness in his eyes. Whether that's
superb acting skills or genuine insanity I'm unsure. He's the local doctor who
has managed to keep his little clinic open without Wraith's knowledge,
and was lucky enough to survive the recent solar flare by standing in
the center of the room(?). As an old friend of Travis, he's more than
happy to help G3, who seems to be ok. While there, Travis notices some
kid outside stealing a weapon from the jeep, so he chases after him.
Another long chase with lots of running ends up with Travis confronting
Wraith's gang. The kid was just a lure! Travis fights bravely, but is
taken captive at gunpoint.
        Kick in the groin No3 Back at
the clinic the
women are arguing about whether Travis will come back or not (pretty
much the only thing they will ever talk about). Latimer is suffering
from the solar flare despite what he said earlier, and is slowly being
taken over by some kind of rotting skin disease. The radiation
is spreading through his body and starting to turn him insane
(although some may argue that the women bickering is causing that
effect). Eventually, he tells the women that they are not safe with him
so the drive off to the baseball stadium.
  Over at
Wraith's pad, Travis
has been tied up and stupidly left with one guard. Yeah, that right, an
easy escape. He gets to beat up a few more of Wraith's men on his way
out.
   Kick in the groin No4 The best one - the poor guy was just about to relieve himself.   Poor Doctor Latimer. All he wanted to do was heal people! The women are still complaining but Travis soon meets them at the stadium after what must have been a long walk. That evening, Travis has some nice little flashbacks, just to remind us why he hates Wraith so much. There's actually a cool little baseball sound effect that precedes this that's well placed just before the flashback. G1 comes out to chat. "Do you remember swimming pools," he asks, then corrects himself "nah, too young." G1 gives Travis a kiss on the cheek, the closest he gets to any groupie action in the film.   A good old sepia flashback. The next morning Travis leaves with G3 to see if they will let her in the bunker due to her frailty. It seems she still hasn't recovered fully. Why he leaves G1 and G2 behind is a mystery, but guess what? Yeah, they are captured by Norm and some more of Wraith's men. Pointlessly, they both manage to briefly escape and there's some chasing around the stadium for a while. Where's the Benny Hill music?   Meanwhile,
Travis and G3
arrive outside the bunker. A group of scavengers are outside trying to
break in. Travis has a chat with Prescott who informs him that life
support systems inside are breaking down and they have no way of
defending themselves if the scavengers break in. Travis can't kill them
all but snipers a few of them and drives off.
After talking to the captured women (more licking from Norm), Wraith learns the location of the bunker, and heads off with his men. The people already at the bunker are not part of Wraith's army.   More freshly shaved armpits and Kick in the groin No5  After finding some of Wraiths men (and easily disposing of them) at the ball park, Travis heads to the junkyard. He
easily manages to
sneak his way into the lightly guarded base and rescue G1 and G2. On
the way out he meets up with Wraith's two top fighters, Perm Man and
Facepaint Guy. Surprisingly, they lay down their weapons and want to
fight fairly. Unfortunately, the two fights are a bit anti-climatic and
over a little too quickly. Travis is a solid
fighter but there's nothing spectacular here. Needless to say, Travis
is the easy victor, and has the audacity to shout "Wraith, It's not over yet!"
at the sky again.
   At the
bunker, Wraith's men
have managed to break in and are making their way into the depths of
the building. Prescott is looking a bit hot under the collar and
realises that his time is up. Over the radio he orders Travis to blow up the bunker!
The women wait at the jeep while Travis moves in. There are still some men outside of the bunker so there's a bit more fighting. Eventually, Travis enters a small side door and retrieves some plastic explosives. Meanwhile, Prescott decides to lighten up and proposes marriage to Sanders with a grenade ring pull (not yet pulled)! No time for vows though, Wraith and his men are knocking down the door!     How come Travis doesn't try to save the people inside? He doesn't have to always follow orders! I'm no expert, but I doubt three loads of explosives (and one grenade) randomly placed around the place would destroy the building above ground, never mind a specially designed underground bunker, but hey, we all love big explosions, right? Travis places two of the bombs on the building and is about to place the third by the entrance when he bumps into Norm. A brief fight and the final explosive is thrust upon Norm who is flat on his back.    I think thats the same face I would pull in his situation. Travis
starts running, and
just in time. Prescott sets off the grenade just as Wraith's men break
into the control room, and Travis's explosives all go off at once. Nice. Travis
runs towards the camera and just as he fills the screen the shot
changes and Travis is no longer jumping from the bombs but diving into
a lake. A nice, no nonsense transition.
     Not bad. Not bad at all. Wraith
and his men have all
been defeated, yet in my mind it's a hollow victory, as most of the
good guys have died, too. Still, Travis can't be too upset, he has his
three groupies and is now officially Stockton's OMEGA cop. After the explosion, Travis drives them all the 2,000
miles to the rumored clean lakes in the mountains. How come none of the
women have changed clothes for the entire film, and the 2,000 mile
drive? They must need a bath!
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So the story is pretty poor, but there are one or two interesting twists, and by the end I was happy enough. Despite the endless chases, Ron Marchini has just enough presence to keep me interested, and some of the character conflicts keep things ticking over. The action is pretty basic, but fun enough, and there were plenty of little bits that made me smile, some deliberate and some not so. It's not a great PA movie, in fact it doesn't really try to be a PA film, and that can be seen as a good and a bad point. I imagine some mutants, radiation and crazy stuff like that would have livened it up a little, but then much of the charm it has now may have been lost. It was a tough film to score, and it could have gone either way, but I will say it again, this movie made me smile, and that's what it's all about. Do you like oldies? I sure do. |
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Alternative
Versions:
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Interesting Facts: |
A surprising amount
of the actors never went on to star in another movie, except for a number who moved onto the sequal, Karate Cop. Jennifer Jostyn (Zoe) had a small part in Deep Impact (which I never really liked at all). A few of the actors worked together on Ron Marchini's Return Fire in 1988. Particularly of note is Adam West, who was obviously coerced by Ron to star in this. |
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Quotes:
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"Do you like
oldies?" Travis/Sanders |
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Connections
With Other PA's:
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Stuart Whitman, who cameos as the Doctor, is
also in 1989's Deadly Reactor. |
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Critic's
reactions:
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N/A |
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Regular Movie Goers Reaction: |
Yeah, well, it's not gonna impress anybody, but it's quite tame so it shouldn't offend anybody either.
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For
the PA Collector:
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An important PA for your collection.
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http://www.surfindead.com/omegacop.html "Meanwhile, Travis and the girls see a big gang of scavengers, and damn it, one of them has Travis’s HAT! So, he takes on the whole Goddamn gang for his stupid Special Police hat. Couldn’t he just requisition another once he gets back to Central Command?" http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/o/omegacop.html " Mere words cannot express how unimpressive this movie was. The box had the audacity to compare the film to both Blade Runner and Terminator; I call upon our holy B-movie jihad to find out who wrote this box copy and kill him by making him watch the damned movie. Twice should do it." http://www.nanarland.com/acteurs/Main.php?id_acteur=ronmarchini A biography of Ron Marchini. In French, but lots of great pictures. |
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Countries
Released:
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Mostly
worldwide on VHS.
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DVD
Release Info:
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The UK region free DVD isn't too hard to track down on eBay. There's normally one or two copies available. The US DVD is a bit harder to find. There are no extras on the UK DVD. It's a typical AIR release, no subtitles, generic menu.
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Actual
Budget/Guessed Budget:
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I
get the distinct feeling that most people here were working for next to
nothing. Lot's of friends helping out etc. The director has confirmed that the budget was $180,000. |
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Media:
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| Box Cover(s): | Pal DVD (click to enlarge)   US VHS  Unknown DVD  UK VHS  Italian VHS  French VHS |
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Advertisement
Poster(s): |
 US Promotional poster |
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Press Cuttings
etc: |
Director Paul Kyriazi in "The Bunker" with Adam West. Photos from: http://www.paulkyriazi.com/ |
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| Trailer(s): |
http://www.lovefilm.com/visitor/product/13752-Omega-Cop.html?show_trailer=1 WMP only. |
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| Comments: |
Post your comments
here: Omega Cop |
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| Fact sheet: | Check out the fact sheet for essential Omega Cop facts. |
