Notable for being the only movie in the history of cinema to use the word "force" three times in its title, Excessive Force 2: Force on Force is your ultra-standard lady-cop ass-kick cable flick chestnut. It offers not one whiff of an iota of originality or real craftsmanship, but for what it is, EC2 delivers the goods with only a minimum of unintentional hilarity.

Stacie Randall is special agent Harly Cordell, a woman once left for dead by a former lover who was trying to piece together a bad-ass assassin squad but shot her in the head when she refused to join. Yeah.

So several years later Harly (the girl) and Lydell (the bastard) butt heads when the bad-ass assassin squad convenes to murder a bunch of strangers in a cemetery. It's all very elaborate and intricately plotted, trust me.

Directed by the man who gave us Bloodfist 7: Manhunt, Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, Black Scorpion 2: Aftershock, and several episodes of America's Most Wanted, Excessive Force 2: Force on Force lacks what's generally known as ... ah, as force. Aside from a few choice karate chops dangled lazily throughout acts 1 and 2, the flick is a dry and ponderous little police procedural -- but once the finale starts to kick in, I gotta say, this goofy little B-movie delivers some high-end mayhem.

The back third of Excessive Force 2: Force on Force is pretty much laden with massive explosions, non-stop gunplay, and tons of crazy carnage. Plus the movie works quite well as a drinking game: Every time our heroine blows a chance to shoot her enemy in the head because she's too busy monologuing, drink a shot of bourbon. You'll never get drunker.

The DVD

Video: It's a surprisingly crisp and clean anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) affair. I doubt this flick ever played inside of a movie theater, but it looks pretty flashy here.

Audio: There's a 5.1, a 2.0, and a DTS track. Optional subtitles in English.

Extras: Just a pair of New Line trailers for The Corruptor, and After the Sunset.

Final Thoughts

Oh, I forgot about the subplot in which poor Harly has to hurry up and kill the villains because there's a bullet still lodged in her brain and she requires open skull surgery to get the thing out of there. It even causes her vision to get blurry from time to time, but only at the most inconvenient moments. Like when six guys are pointing shotguns at her.