Striking Distance

Striking Distance / 1993
102 minutes
dir: Rowdy Herrington
screenplay: Rowdy Herrington, Marty Kaplan
starring: Bruce Willis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Farina

In the way that Quiet Cool and Cobra are representative of everything that is great about cheesy, insane action movies, 1993’s Striking Distance is a symbol of everything not great. First off, it’s too long at OVER 100 MINUTES. It’s boring, and it’s really, really dumb in a totally boring way. There are a few good chases, but most of them happen on boats, so they’re not even that good, because boats obviously suck.

I watched this movie maybe nine months ago, but I’m not sure if it’s become hazier in my memory since then, or if I’ve just come to really understand everything I didn’t like about it. Either way, here’s how it all gets started: Bruce Willis plays Pittsburgh detective Tom Hardy and it’s just about time for the policeman’s ball when suddenly there’s a serial strangler on the loose, so that shit gets postponed so every officer in the city can chase the guy around for a few hours, but then he kills Bruce Willis’ dad and gets away, but then a guy is arrested who definitely doesn’t look like a serial strangler and (duh) Bruce Willis doesn’t believe they caught the real serial strangler, but Bruce Willis hardly has any time to even think about that because his mildly retarded police officer cousin Jimmy is about to jump off a bridge because he doesn’t want to go to prison for being a bad cop that beat the shit out of a suspect. Relevant to this scene and the character: Tom Hardy testified against Cousin Jimmy in court, because he’s serious about being a cop, and no mortal man is above that, goddammit.

So then Cousin Jimmy jumps and the skies TEAR OPEN to let down some totally dramatic and real-looking rain, and the whole situation really gets to Bruce Willis and makes him cry pretty hard.

Fast forward two years into the future and Bruce Willis has been demoted to the ever-so-lowly rank of BOAT COP because he went on the news after Cousin Jimmy’s death to say he thought the real strangler was a cop, which is definitely frowned upon in the cop community, even though they’re otherwise pretty forgiving and open-minded. Anyway, turns out Bruce Willis is actually a pretty shitty BOAT COP with a mess of self-esteem, authority, and hygiene issues.

An hour and a half later, it turns out Cousin Jimmy didn’t die, and he was the real strangler, and Bruce Willis tasers him in the mouth. Whatever.

Sorry nerds, BOAT COPS on patrol.