Excessive Force II: Force on Force (1995)

Creature features and slasher sequels weren’t the only franchises trying to cash in during the direct-to-video boom of the mid-1990s. Action films were doing exactly the same thing, often with little regard for continuity. Excessive Force II: Force on Force is perhaps one of the strangest examples. Despite carrying the title of a sequel, it has virtually nothing in common with 1993’s Excessive Force. Gone are Thomas Ian Griffith’s Chicago cop, the supporting cast, and even the story. Instead, we’re introduced to Stacie Randall’s Harly Cordell, a former Special Forces operative Francis Lydell hunting down her one-time lover and commanding officer after he betrayed her and left her for dead. The project actually began life as an entirely separate screenplay before being rebranded as an Excessive Force sequel, presumably because the original film had found an audience on VHS despite bombing theatrically. 

That disconnect is immediately obvious. Throughout the film there are references to previous events involving Harly and Lydell that the audience never witnessed, giving the impression you’ve accidentally started halfway through a follow-up. For much of the running time I kept expecting those revelations to somehow tie back to the original Excessive Force, but they never do. The only thing these two films really share is a fondness for gunfights and explosions.

The opening minutes don’t exactly inspire confidence either. Early on Randall’s supposedly unstoppable heroine takes on a nameless thug and he is launched theatrically through the air in the background of a cemetery. It’s staged with such exaggerated timing that it genuinely feels like something lifted from The Naked Gun. I honestly had to check I wasn’t watching a spoof of low-budget action movies. The problem is there aren’t any punchlines. The film repeatedly flirts with unintentional comedy, playing every cliché completely straight while expecting us to take the melodrama seriously.

That isn’t Stacie Randall’s fault. As always, she’s an incredibly likeable screen presence and arguably the film’s greatest strength. She has the charisma and physicality to convince as an action lead, but the screenplay gives her precious little to work with beyond looking determined and firing weapons and highkicks in slow motion, whilst nursing a significant brain injury that complicates the story when needed. Harly should be carrying the emotional weight of betrayal and revenge, yet director Jonathan Winfrey seems far more interested in introducing an endless parade of gangsters, crooked cops and disposable supporting players than developing his protagonist. Randall does what she can, but she’s working with a character who exists largely to move from one shootout to the next.

Looking back, Excessive Force II represents something of a high-water mark for Randall’s career, which makes it all the more disappointing that Hollywood never really embraced her as a leading action heroine. During the early 1990s she became a familiar face in genre cinema through films such as Puppet Master 4, Ghoulies IV and Trancers 4 and 5, before later appearing in The Assault and From Dusk Till Dawn 2. She had the screen presence to become another Cynthia Rothrock or Shannon Tweed-style video store icon, but the opportunities simply never arrived. Rather than graduating into higher-profile productions, she found herself largely confined to the ever-shrinking direct-to-video market before stepping away from acting in the early 2000s. It’s a shame because, given stronger material, she had far more potential than her filmography was allowed to demonstrate.

Thankfully, patience is rewarded. While the first two-thirds often feel like a collection of disconnected conversations interrupted by the occasional burst of gunfire, the final act finally delivers on the promise of the title. A siege on a police station, energetic gun battles, a satisfying car chase and a reasonably tense final showdown inject some much-needed momentum into proceedings. None of it reinvents the action genre, but Winfrey suddenly seems engaged once the bullets start flying. The climactic set pieces are competently staged and entertaining enough that I found myself wishing the entire film had maintained the same pace.

Jonathan Winfrey’s background probably explains that imbalance. He would go on to direct Roger Corman productions including both Black Scorpion films and several other low-budget action and science-fiction pictures, and his strengths clearly lie in delivering efficient action on limited budgets rather than character drama. Here, the quieter moments feel perfunctory, almost as if they’re obligations before the next explosion. But, when the action arrives, the film finally finds some energy.

Ironically, I actually enjoyed Excessive Force II more than its predecessor. The original was conceived as a theatrical star vehicle for Thomas Ian Griffith, carrying an estimated $13 million budget, but it grossed just over $1.1 million at the North American box office, effectively ending any hopes of turning Griffith into New Line Cinema’s next action star. The sequel bypassed cinemas entirely, arriving as a low-budget direct-to-video release where expectations were considerably lower and profitability depended on rental performance rather than ticket sales. Its existence suggests the original found enough success on VHS to justify rebranding an existing production into another instalment. An Excessive Force III was reportedly planned, though it ultimately never materialised.

In the end, Excessive Force II: Force on Force is a perfectly watchable slice of mid-1990s video-store action, but only if you are into that sort of thing. Calling it Excessive Force II only invites comparisons that don’t benefit either film, because beyond a shared marketing label they have virtually nothing in common. Viewed as a standalone B-movie, there’s enough entertainment in the final act and enough screentime from Stacie Randall to make it worth a look.

---

---