The Protector: Aka Valentine's Day

Starring: Mario Van Peebles, Randy Quaid, Rae Dawn Chong, Zehra Leverman    Directed by: Duane Clark

THE STORY:  One thing I really hate is those twist endings that are either too easy to figure out or just thrown in at the end of a movie to make it seem more mysterious. This flick falls into a nebulous region between those extremes, but only because I was barely interested in it.

Jack Valentine is a cop with a history. His story is that he somehow screwed up protecting a witness....by screwing the witness...and she died because of it. This story is never really told its just hinted at enough so that we know something happened, but no details are forthcoming. Afterwards Valentine's been riding a desk but his partner, Phil somehow talks the powers that be into letting him back on the streets.

You'd think that would be a good deal for Valentine. It would if he had any [unwrite]ing common sense. While watching a mob insider named Tony D. that has promised to turn evidence in on the Mafia, Valentine and Phil fail to keep him from getting killed by a group of hitmen. The FBI man that is on the case, Keenan is pissed off. He gives Valentine 2 weeks to provide evidence that can incriminate mob boss Joe Buddha and bring the crime family down. Desperate, Joe goes after the only witness to the murder...Alma, Tony D's girlfriend. She was with him at the time of his assassination.

Alma isn't too pleased to have the cops asking her questions. She's standoffish to Valentine and even knows about the case he [unwrite]ed up. But Valentine keeps showing up and asking questions. At this point it would seem like Valentine is a pretty good cop, trying to crack the case. Keep reading, because the movie will prove otherwise. Valentine's not a good cop, he's a stupid moron.

What's really going on is that Alma isn't her real name. Valentine finds that out fairly early in the movie but he doesn't know who she really is. But when she comes to his place one night after someone tries to kill her he isn't interested in her name. With no provocation and one dinner later, Valentine is in love with Alma! He's so infatuated with her after they have dinner he dumps the wire he was wearing in the men's room at the restaurant they were eating at. They proceed back to his place to do the nasty in one of the best sex scenes I've seen in a crap flick in a long time. (it was better than the one in New Crime City which was actually pretty good in a rough kind of way...oops..said too much!)

Anyway, the truth eventually comes out. Not through police work, but through a greasy informant that Valentine knows. Alma is really Marian Hamilton. Years ago when she was a child she saw Joe Buddha kill her accountant father. Her dad was an honest man but worked for Joe unknowing of his criminal activities. When he found out that he was working for the mob, Joe killed him to keep him silent. Alma saw the murder through a window but said nothing. Instead she waited until she grew up and involved herself with Buddha's mob in order to set them against each other in hopes to kill Joe. (Which is a convoluted plan, really. And what preteen child wouldn't tell the police she saw her father killed?) Alma set Tony D. and Joe's right hand man, Michael against each other (with sex...huh...just like a woman, huh? And just like a man to fall for it) and both were killed. Now she wants Joe. Valentine is between a rock and a hard place. He's in trouble for sleeping with her but he has to deliver a real case against Joe Buddha or he's through...he can't just let her kill him.

So being pretty stupid already, he arranges a dinner with Joe to talk. He hopes to talk Joe into turning states evidence against the mob by confronting him with Alma. The only witness to his murder of Mr.Hamilton. Although he tells Joe its unofficial, its not. Alma is wired and Phil is outside recording. But Valentine is lured out of the room by a phone call from agent Keenan. When he leaves a gunfight occurs in the room (off camera)  leaving Alma, Joe and a few thugs dead. It seems that Valentine's case is as dead as well. Phil's recordings are blank in a critical spot. But then Valentine remembers that Alma always taped conversations that she could use against people on a mini-recorder. When he finds it in police evidence lockup he discovers that the shooter in the room was Phil! Let me take a second to say this police force is as good as a three dollar bill. First they can't even discern Alma's real identity and then miraculously no one bothered to listen to the tape Alma had on her person?

Be that as it may, it was a real lame surprise. When the movie didn't end after Alma's death the only person left to suspect was Phil. and its not the first time there's been a Good Cop get surprised By his Bad Partner in a movie. Since there's really nothing to add, I'll tell you....Valentine lives after Phil tries to kill him. Phil was working with the mob all along. He only brought Valentine in because he thought Valentine could use the money. But when Valentine proved to honest, the best laid plans of mice and men....

I know this review glosses over a few things, but its nothing you'll miss. You'll save yourself some trouble if you don't watch the movie! The only thing that got my attention was the sex scenes. And not because I'm a horny dude but because they were the only exciting thing in the damned flick. Phil was played by Randy Quaid. Rae Dawn Chong plays an attorney who happens to be Valentine's ex-wife.

Best Lines: "This may might come as a total surprise but I don't find your tall lanky ass irresistible at all."- Valentine to Alma. He was lying.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) Alma didn't notice a big [unwrite]ing black van parked 25 feet from her big ass window? Unless she's got some serious vision problems how could she not notice Valentine sitting in it pointing a giant telephoto lens at her?

2.) Alma must have reflexes Spider-Man would envy. She ducked a shotgun blast while sitting in a motionless car! Then she sneaks out when Valentine is on the phone for 20 seconds without being noticed. She's Cat Woman!

3.) So the cops and the FBI can't find out what Alma's real name is, yet some 2-bit hood informant that Valentine knows find out who she really is. What city is this again? I need to know in case I decide to take up a life of crime. I can just make an identity as Zippo Aardvark and the cops will never find my real name!

4.) What does Valentine see in Alma or Marianne or whatever. She's a good looking chick but that's about it. She's into shady business, she's obviously not honest and she can't be that good of a lay. So why does Valentine risk his career and possible jail time? He didn't know her well enough to fall so head over heels for her like he does in this movie.

5.) I love Valentine's last words when he leaves Alma in the room with Joe..."Don't do anything stupid.". I mean, he's the stupidest guy in the building! He leaves his only eyewitness and leverage on Joe in the murder of Mr. Hamilton alone....an eyewitness that told him to his face that she wanted Joe dead! dead! dead!  for a phone call that in all sensibility he shouldn't be getting. What did he think would happen? This guy is one horrible cop.

NUDITY AND SEX:  Boobs are seen including Rae Dawn Chong's. Valentine has sex with Alma and its pretty explicit...actually it was almost soft porn level.

HUH?:  What about the wire Valentine left in the men's room of the restaurant? Isn't he liable for that? Damn...I lost a ten dollar canteen once during a field exercise and they made me pay for it!

If Phil was so intent on keeping Valentine from getting too close why didn't he just kill Alma himself. He could have done it one night when Valentine was elsewhere and it would have solved the problem.

Why does Joe Buddha, feared mobster go shopping in his bathrobe?

For an old man with a limp, Joe is a bad mo-fo. He takes out the assassins sent after him even after they've killed his bodyguards! No wonder he's the mob boss!

THE FINAL JUDGMENT: I hate to bring it up again, but the only thing that keeps this movie from the pit is a small sense of mystery in it and the two short, but surprisingly good sex scenes. Well, that and I didn't think the movie was awful...its just not good.  Don't bother with it unless you are really hard up for a cop movie. I mean desperately.