The first big-screen treatment of one of the Lt. Dave "Streak" Robicheaux detective novels of James Lee Burke, shorn of much of his literary pretension. The image -- the proverbial picture that's worth a thousand words -- eliminates the need for all that knee-deep verbiage, all that slogging scrutiny of vegetation and climate, in setting the Crescent City scene. And it clears out, as well, some of the emotional cargo carried by the recovering alcoholic hero. What's left, in place of Burke's sweaty striving after profundity, is a nice smooth swift shallow genre piece with plenty of rude dialogue and brutal action. The bare plot isn't much: some simple, elementary, weakly motivated exposition setting up a self-perpetuating program of tit-for-tat, punch-and-counterpunch, kill-or-be-killed. It serves its purpose. With Alec Baldwin, Kelly Lynch, Mary Stuart Masterson, Teri Hatcher, and Eric Roberts; directed by Phil Joanou. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd
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