Edison Force (2005)

Originally Reviewed

Saturday July 22, 2006

Like many other people who probably rented this film I only rented it because of RT's (Rotten Tomatoes) gorilla marketing campaign to force this down our throats with the constant banner ads and advertisements. Other than that I rented it out of curiosity for how bad it was going to be... well my curiosity has been filled, and this film is sufficiently bad, I hope RT got lots of money for advertising this because if they actually thought this film was worth advertising then we have more problems than the constant crashes and maintenance of this website (referring to Rotten Tomatoes buggy site).

Edison Force is about a group of undercover cops who are apart of a group called FRAT, First Response Assault & Tactical unit, made up of a bunch of highly skilled shooters who have all served prison time. FRAT is above the law and while they have technically cleaned the city up, in all actuality they have now become the ones responsible for causing all the messes.

The film has a quite impressive cast of well known names; grant it there isn't a whole lot of talent to back up those names. The film follows rapper LL Cool J, who has only recently become a member of FRAT, but he's not too comfortable with their ways of handling situations.  Dylan McDermott is his drugged up, trigger happy partner who gains his pleasure from killing and beating up civilians. After McDermott executes an unarmed guy during a drug bust he forces the guys buddy to take the wrap for the whole thing claiming he came after him with a knife.

LL Cool J was not comfortable with any of this but goes along with the story during the trial, adding to the fact that the defendant did appear to have been in fear of his life when they arrived on the scene. The defendant thanks him while he exits the courtroom which catches the ear of newbie reporter Justin Timberlake. Timberlake's curiosity is sparked by this exchange and decides to delve in further but is unable to get any information. When he goes to the defendant in prison he spills some information about this all being a cover-up for the cop. This was all he needed to continue his story, yet as he gets closer and closer to the truth he puts his life in even more danger. In the end the only one who can help bring justice to the dead and end the corruption of FRAT is one of the guys whose actually in it.

I really wasn't expecting much out of this film at all, so I wasn't terribly surprised when it ended up being a total piece of crap. This is also one of those horribly written films that somehow believes that continual cursing will make the film more intense and hide the fact it's worse than a TV movie. I'm really surprised at the number of people they got to actually do this film even though most of them aren't that talented, from LL Cool J, Dylan McDermott, Justin Timberlake, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Piper Perabo, Roselyn Sanchez, and even the dad from Home Alone (that ones not a surprise).

For the most part the acting was horrible, of course I'm sure it has something to do with the bad story, but some of the characters were beyond bad. Dylan McDermott as a deranged cop became hilarious as he overacted the entire role. Justin Timberlake, while not the worst in the film wasn't very convincing in his role and seemed to simply be excited to be an in film. Kevin Spacey had a horrible wig on that sunk his character into truly cornball city right off the spot, hard to not burst out laughing when he first appears on screen. Morgan Freeman was alright but he's basically exactly the same as he is in every film, pretty dull and monotone.

In the end, it was as bad as I thought it would be and probably worse, an extremely bad film with sub standard actors, and a horrible script. But what do you expect when the two leading actors are LL Cool J and Justin Timberlake!?! Both of these guys really need to stick to music. I'm getting tried of people in the music business thinking they can act, I have yet to see anyone who was truly great at both. I'm a big fan of Will Smith and his music but even I'll admit he's really not that great of a rapper, acting is his strong suit, and these guys need to go back to their strong suit. Let this film go by unless you're intentionally prepared to watch a total piece of crap, it's truly direct to DVD material.

2/10