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Roots of Evil
Naked Force
USA 1992
produced by Sidney Niederk (= Sam Norvell) for Cannon
directed by Gary Graver
starring Jillian Kesner, Alex Cord, Charles Dierkop, Brinke Stevens, Jewel Shepard, Delia Sheppard, Randall Brady, Deanna Lund, Gregory Scott Cummins, Jack Margolis, Kate Murtagh, Donna Spangler, Sam Menning, Bob Bragg, Jean Clark, James Dickson, Daphne Cheung, Marlene Casamento, Buddy Daniels, Paul Grayber, Brigitte Burdine, Diki Lerner, Sabino Villa Lobos
screenplay by Adam Berg, based on the movie Trinity Brown, music by Duane Sciacqua
review by Mike Haberfelner
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After a mob boss Tony (Paul Grayber) is killed, all evidence points to
his best friend Johnny Malone (Randall Brady), and cops Brenda (Jillian
Kesner) and Jake (Alex Cord) would do nothing rather than book him because
he's an all-around scumbag. Thing is, he has a watertight alibi, horror
actress Candy (Brinke Stevens), whom he has spent the night with. However,
that alibi is too watertight not to be shattered, and Jake and Brenda
learn Candy is lieing because Malone is holding her kid hostage. It still
sounds wrong, but our cops have to investigate - and Jake is almost blown
up by a bomb when he goes looking for the kid. Brenda does some more
investigating and finds out that Candy was actually in cahoots with late
Tony's wife (Deanna Lund), and they killed him and put the blame on Johnny
to live out their lesbian relationship with all of Tony's money. When
Brenda comes to arrest them, she catches them red-handed making love in
Tony's bed. In a totally unrelated but nevertheless interwoven story,
Brenda and Jake are on the trail of a prostitute killer, who eventually
turns out to be a cop (Charles Dierkop) - whom they eventually capture
using a hooker (Delia Sheppard) as bait. This film is unique
inasmuch as it is one of the few (probably the only) mainstream (if low
budget) copmovies actually based on a hardcore porn flick, Trinity
Brown - also directed by Gary Graver, back in 1985. If you take
(most of) the sex away, the two films are almost identical, plotwise,
apart from the fact that the earlier film did not feature the prostitute
killer plotline - which sits a bit uneasy with Roots of Evil's main
plot anyways. Anyways, this all doesn't say much about Roots of Evil
itself, now does it? Fact is, the main plot (that lifted from Trinity
Brown) is actually well enough constructed to hold one's interest,
but is not at all helped by the prostitute killer subplot that provides
the film with its more sensationalist (but also sleazier) aspects. As for
acting, direction, action and so on - it's all pretty much your low budget
exploitation standard, nothing great, and nothing that would make Roots
of Evil especially memorable - which is not to say this is a bad
movie, more or less your typical a-dime-a-dozen early 1990's genre flick.
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