OFF LIMITS is a couple different genres – serial killer thriller, buddy-cop action, Vietnam War movie. It centers on two military police detectives, Sergeants First Class Buck McGriff (Willem Dafoe between PLATOON and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST) and Albaby Perkins (Gregory Hines between RUNNING SCARED and TAP).

It’s directed by Christopher Crowe, who was the writer of NIGHTMARES, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and FEAR, but his only other theatrical directing gig was WHISPERS IN THE DARK. He also created a bunch of TV shows (including B.L. Stryker, B.J. and the Bear and The Watcher hosted by Sir Mix-a-Lot) and (no shit) designed the logo for Cheap Trick. I would’ve guessed it was made by more of a cinema veteran because, though I only think it’s pretty good, it has the muscular cinematistic confidence and atmosphere of A Real Fucking Movie. I mean, let me give you a few screengrabs I made to give you an idea of the fuckin vibes (TFV) in this thing:

Maybe Crowe got lucky, maybe he just had this one in him, maybe it’s just the resources you have when making an action-adjacent studio movie in the year of our lord 1988 that make it look like this. Production designer J. Dennis Washington had already done VICTORY and STAND BY ME, and would later do THE FUGITIVE. I was expecting the cinematographer to be really accomplished too, but David Gribble hadn’t done much I’ve heard of. No offense Mr. Gribble – this is definitely an accomplishment. He later had a JCVD run (NOWHERE TO RUN, THE QUEST) and did the Jesse Stone movies. Obviously I respect that.

There are really good locations like strip clubs and cramped apartments, a foot chase through crowded streets, music sounding like an early Seagal movie (because in fact it’s by James Newton Howard, who did MARKED FOR DEATH), and you get to see Dafoe hauling ass like a real action star.

Yeah, it’s set in Vietnam during the war, and like the Americans of so many movies about that they’re living on some sort of danger high, getting a desensitization and macabre sense of humor about the horrible shit going on around them, and slowly being driven to the brink. But working for the Criminal Investigation Division means they’re not in the jungle dodging landmines and guerrilla attacks, they’re in Saigon dealing with sleazy dudes in discos and dark alleys. The night life is bustling, it always seems hot, they’re constantly sweaty. Perkins chews gum loudly, and in more than one scene talks about wanting to tear a guy’s dick off. Fortunately for ethics, unfortunately for cinema, he does not ever do it. Saving that for part 2.

The case that comes to them from Master Sergeant Benjamin Dix (Fred Ward, UNCOMMON VALOR) is a nasty one: somebody’s killing prostitutes, and evidence points to a G.I. So they’re sort of investigating their own, including Specialist Five Maurice (Keith David in the same year as THEY LIVE) and Colonel Dexter Armstrong (Scott Glenn, MAN ON FIRE). David Alan Grier has a serious role as a translator, probly because he was in A SOLDIER’S STORY, but he was also in I’M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA this same year. It’s weird because he goes whole hog into the Vietnamese and we’re so used to him being on all the time that it seems like he’s doing a bit. Man, I hope those are real words he’s saying otherwise we got a problem here.

At a crime scene McGriff accidentally gets stuck holding a murder victim’s baby, and doesn’t know what the fuck to do. He brings her to the orphanage and meets Sister Nicole (Amanda Pays, one of my childhood crushes thanks to Max Headroom), a nun who helps the local sex workers so she’s aware of and comfortable talking about things these guys don’t expect from a nun.

It’s a sleazy business – they start by interviewing every soldier known to have been treated for the same v.d. that a prostitute said the suspect suffered from. It’s not a strong story, just a zig-zagging investigation meandering through different theories and suspects, feverish encounters and tense stand offs. There’s a pretty shocking twist where (SPOILER) the guy who seems most like he did it suddenly commits suicide by jumping off a helicopter. But he didn’t do it. Very weird.

Yes, this is a Vietnam War movie but they’re out of their element when they have to go into an actual war zone and crawl through a trench to talk to a weirdo soldier named Elgin Flowers (Raymond O’Connor, DR. ALIEN), who’s out here risking his life to get away from the threat of knowing too much about the murders. Also of course there’s some kind of weird irony to everyone understanding how evil it is for this American soldier to be murdering women, while they’re all there in support of a war that’s killing all kinds of women and children and everybody else.

And actually there are times when the city becomes a war zone, for example in a tense scene where a mob of locals attack their car. They’re going to be arrested by a soldier they call Lime Green (Lim Kay Tong, DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY) because of the color of his ascot, they refuse to go and are rescued by an American helicopter flying over. Doesn’t make them the good guys.

The coolest and most memorable part is when they’re in their car and a dude rides by on a Vespa and tosses a grenade under them. McGriff sees it happening in the side mirror but there’s no time to react. It bucks the car in the air and they come out of the smoke covered in blood, but alive.

The screenplay is credited to director Crowe and Jack Thibeau, who wrote some episodes of Miami Vice but was better known as an actor, and this kind of borrows ingredients from some of the movies he was in: APOCALYPSE NOW, 48 HRS., SUDDEN IMPACT, CITY HEAT, LETHAL WEAPON. He was also in a vigilante-vs.-bikers TV movie Crowe wrote and directed called STREETS OF JUSTICE. I’d watch that.

OFF LIMITS (a.k.a. SAIGON according to this way better poster art) didn’t completely come together for me, but I enjoyed being introduced to an edgy ‘80s buddy movie I was completely unaware of. According to Wikipedia, “The movie was not successful at the box office, grossing only $7.2 million. However, it later found its audience on home video and on cable TV, primarily HBO and Showtime.” And there are enough potent ingredients in it (Dafoe, Ward, the whole crazy nightmare feel of the thing) that I gotta make sure other people who grew up without HBO or Showtime know it’s out there. Thanks to my friend Jensen for the recommendation.