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In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Baldwin is trying to be Rambo here,kills about everyone in sight and then some.The guy should stick to stuff he does well and forget trying to be Stallone.Thats about all there is to say about this movie.The plot is about a bunch of crazy vigilante cops who seem to just like to murder people,some of whom happen to be criminals.Baldwin does his best to act tough and delivers every line in as much a husky voice as he can master but he just ain't the dude for this type of role.He is a cop opposed to the lawless violence,meets a prostitute played by Tia Carrere whom i usually like but i didn't like her in this,she has too may wisecracks and too much personality for this role. Neither the bad guys nor the good guys make any sense in this movie,there is a lot of shooting but the motivations and the characters are all paper-thin,Palminteri is simply wasted here.

Scar City is the inspirational story of New York City's first fully functional retarded police officer, John Trace (Stephen Baldwin), who is recruited to work in the special S.C.A.R. unit run by Lieutenant Laine Devon (Chaz Palmenteri). Trace goes through the usual rookie hazing, but has a harder time with it than most, because of his inability to understand what is happening. Tia Carerre plays a titty bar vixen who spends half the movie uninvolved with the plot but finds her way in at Trace's first raid with his new unit. From there on the helpless Carerre relies on Trace to keep her safe from the baddies. There are some amazing moments where the retarded Trace walks on top of cars instead of going around them and shoots his pistol over and around his head. The line, "Don't think once," sums up the movie pretty well. I won't spoil it for you but Trace's journey through the crooked NYPD as the first fully functional retarded officer is as hard to watch as it is inspirational. I'm not sure if this was inspired by a true story or not, but if it was I'm sure that whoever the trailblazer was who is the real John Trace would be thrilled with the accurate portrayal of the mentally retarded by Stephen Baldwin.

When I first saw "Scarred City" on late night broadcast TV some years ago, I liked it, despite editing of mammary organs, blood and profanity (It was aired 11.35 p.m., beyond the hold of the dreaded FCC. Aw, the idiocy). Thankfully, I got in on DVD and I like it a bit more. It's not the best, but has charm.John Trace (Stephen Baldwin) is a good but trigger-happy beat cop in Brooklyn, New York, facing three bad shootings. A fourth happens with a unarmed drug perp. Lt. Laine Devon (Chazz Palminteri) is the only high-level cop sympathetic to Trace's predicament and inducts him into the SCAR unit, an elite group of cops that handle dangerous thugs. It's better than going to jail, but Trace, during a sting at a porn shop, finds Devon and the rest are also trigger-happy, but have no conscience and the powers-that-be look the other way. He goes along for self-protection, but, during a violent drug bust, he breaks rank by saving the life of a call girl/torch song singer named Candy, played by sweet-faced, sassy Tia Carrere. Marked for death by both sides of the law, both of them have to work together to stay a few paces ahead."Scarred City" is your usual late-night, B-feature but has much more, thanks to director Ken Sanzel's(writer/showrunner on "Numb3rs") witty dialogue-laded script and the performances. Sure, Baldwin's sometimes sleepy, Carrere's too smart and both look a bit old for the roles, but they play along well as two unlikely lovers who don't fit in their professions, another good redeeming factor. Palminteri comes across more of a mobster than a cop, but still menacing. TV fans should note the appearances of Gary Dourdan (CSI) as Devon's right-hand man and Larry Manetti (Magnum P.I.) as a mob-connected, strip joint owner. The rest of the cast is also reliable.And no, Tia's doesn't display her "goodies" but there's a funny bit involving that. Although it pales in the shadows of the superior "Magnum Force" and the recent "Frank Miller's Sin City" (particularly the slightly similar "That Yellow Bastard" vignette, starring Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba and Nick Stahl), "Scarred City" is good enough with a six-pack of beer (I prefer orange juice), three extra cheese pizza pies, a soft-core porn film and a Chris Rock concert film on a Saturday night.

I didn't expect "THE USUAL SUSPECTS" but what I found was a film with some GREAT GREAT moments.. funny and caustic... a beautiful song by Tia... some fantastic scenes that made the occasional 2-D plot come alive with the fresh delivery and chemistry between the two stars!