Face of Terror

There is nothing special about Face of Terror. It is a by-the-numbers police procedural with a familiar plot.

Cop's sister disappears in another city. He follows her there while his partner covers for him back home. The sister ran into some bad company, got into the drug scene, and ended up mixing it up with arms dealers and even a terrorist. The local cops have a million things to think about, including terrorism and interference from the CIA, so they don't have time to worry about one missing girl. Our hero, of course, has nothing else to worry about, so he gets upset with the local police and decides to solve the crime himself. In the process, he frees the world from Islamo-terrorism, and kills about half of the local underworld.

You know. The usual stuff from an episode of "McCloud."

Although this film is not original, neither is it incompetent. By the standards of cable and straight-to-video films, it provides a satisfactory hour and a half of mindless diversion, with the following possible points of interest:

The hero of the film is played by Rick (aka Ricky) Schroder, former child star in the 80s (remember "Silver Spoons"?), and a member of the cast of NYPD Blue in the 90s.
The particular city being disrupted is Barcelona, which is one of the most photogenic cities in the world, and provides some international flavor to Schroder's "bull in a china shop" act.
Our hero is aided by Paulina Galvez, who plays an undercover cop trying to bust the drug traffic. She is a beautiful woman with a spectacular head of hair, and she does a brief topless scene.
Substantial topless nudity is provided by Marta Nieto, another looker who has a very impressive natural chest.

The DVD is bare-bones, but the widescreen transfer is quiet acceptable.

DVD INFO

No meaningful features
widescreen, anamorphically enhanced

NUDITY REPORT

see the main commentary

The Critics Vote ...

No major reviews online

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 5.3/10

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a C-. Acceptable STV or cable film, but no breakthrough. Neither incompetent nor original, it is a mediocre clone of some popular popcorn films.