Also, the film begins with the twist of an alien culture being suddenly dumped into Los Angeles, and it causes a culture clash.
The newcomers, the aliens, who have been allowed to take new names and work and live with regular people, have some advantages over regular people, but also a few disadvantages.
The first part of the film has a James Caan who is still getting over his partners death, suddenly partnered up with a person he normally would not even associate with- but in fact, he chose that partnership, because it would give him a pathway to investigate who shot his former partner "Tug". But something that he did out of necessity becomes something that gives him an advantage over normal human cop pairs- he understands human criminals, and his partner understands newcomer criminals.
There is a very short honeymoon between the two main characters in the film, eventually they figure out how to work with each other.
After that, we are presented with a conundrum that has to be figured out.
And that's why I say it's the French connection. It's got all of the great things that a good cop movie has, great fight scenes, big guns, great car chases. LA is a pretty good city to use as the background of a car chase, because it has those factory areas over in Long Beach and San Pedro. Also miles and miles of Malibu beaches.
And more miles and miles of scummy, crusty nightclubs like the "Encounters" nightclub in this film- Leslie Bevis, who played the alien freighter captain and occasional Quark girlfriend in deep space nine "Rionoj", is Cassandra, a very kinky newcomer who loves experiencing things with humans. And she did not like what Terence stamp did to her Newcomer boyfriend.
This film should have been longer. It has a lot of culture that can be mined and abused for humor, and in fact, when the film was turned into a television series (and then later several movies), they really got into the newcomer culture. Not to mention the families of "Sam" Francisco and Se-Ike's (AKA Poophead in Newcomer jargon).
This is one of my favorite movies with James Caan, and I had never seen Mandy Patakin before.
There are lots of great things in here, and I'm glad that this movie led to other shows with other things that we eventually learned about the newcomers.
I never had the opportunity to see this in the theater, and in fact, it looks like this film might have been made originally to be a television show pilot, due to the involvement of Rockne S O'Bannon, The creator of Farscape and other great sci-fi shows. But here, he shows that he is just as good making cop movies that have alien twists. And with just a few more added budget-dollars, a TV show pilot becomes a great theatrical release. If, in fact, the film was originally intended as a television show. As a theatrical release, the film was awarded more down to Earth gritty realism.
The newcomers, the aliens, who have been allowed to take new names and work and live with regular people, have some advantages over regular people, but also a few disadvantages.
The first part of the film has a James Caan who is still getting over his partners death, suddenly partnered up with a person he normally would not even associate with- but in fact, he chose that partnership, because it would give him a pathway to investigate who shot his former partner "Tug". But something that he did out of necessity becomes something that gives him an advantage over normal human cop pairs- he understands human criminals, and his partner understands newcomer criminals.
There is a very short honeymoon between the two main characters in the film, eventually they figure out how to work with each other.
After that, we are presented with a conundrum that has to be figured out.
And that's why I say it's the French connection. It's got all of the great things that a good cop movie has, great fight scenes, big guns, great car chases. LA is a pretty good city to use as the background of a car chase, because it has those factory areas over in Long Beach and San Pedro. Also miles and miles of Malibu beaches.
And more miles and miles of scummy, crusty nightclubs like the "Encounters" nightclub in this film- Leslie Bevis, who played the alien freighter captain and occasional Quark girlfriend in deep space nine "Rionoj", is Cassandra, a very kinky newcomer who loves experiencing things with humans. And she did not like what Terence stamp did to her Newcomer boyfriend.
This film should have been longer. It has a lot of culture that can be mined and abused for humor, and in fact, when the film was turned into a television series (and then later several movies), they really got into the newcomer culture. Not to mention the families of "Sam" Francisco and Se-Ike's (AKA Poophead in Newcomer jargon).
This is one of my favorite movies with James Caan, and I had never seen Mandy Patakin before.
There are lots of great things in here, and I'm glad that this movie led to other shows with other things that we eventually learned about the newcomers.
I never had the opportunity to see this in the theater, and in fact, it looks like this film might have been made originally to be a television show pilot, due to the involvement of Rockne S O'Bannon, The creator of Farscape and other great sci-fi shows. But here, he shows that he is just as good making cop movies that have alien twists. And with just a few more added budget-dollars, a TV show pilot becomes a great theatrical release. If, in fact, the film was originally intended as a television show. As a theatrical release, the film was awarded more down to Earth gritty realism.