I Come in Peace aka Dark Angel (1990) – Review

What would happen if a cop who “plays by his own rules” was to encounter a drug dealer of the extraterrestrial variety? This was the kind of Gold Star premise that was hitting cinemas at the tail end of the 80s and into the 90s, and if such a project were also to star Dolph Lundgren, well, then even if the film ended up failing at the box office there was still a good chance it would be fun as hell.

Originally titled Dark Angel – it changed to I Come in Peace because two other films already had the title The Dark Angel – this early 90s action film deals with Houston police officer Jack Caine (Dolph Lundgren) going after Victor Manning (Sherman Howard) and his gang of white-collar drug dealers called White Boys – a bit on the nose as names go but let’s go with it – who had killed his partner while he ran off to stop a convenience store robbery. But in between the killing of Caine’s partner and his finally showing up at the crime scene, a tall scary alien arrives and kills a bunch of the White Boys.  These kills were done via a flying-spinning disc that zooms around the room slitting everyone’s throat, and then this “alien visitor” makes off with a briefcase of heroin, which the gang had earlier stolen from a federal lock-up.

Note: Mathias Hues had to perform all of his own stunts because there were no doubles that could match his 6’ 5” size and as he is doing all of this in four-inch lifts it makes this all the more impressive.

The alien in question is an extraterrestrial drug dealer named Talec (Mathias Hues) who has come to Earth to acquire the rarest of drugs, which is achieved by using the heroin stolen from White Boys to form some kind of “synthetic heroin” that he would then inject into a person, after which he extracts the resulting endorphins from their brains.  Synthesizing them into a drug called “Barsi” to be used by addicts on his home planet. Needless to say, Caine is at first focused on finding those responsible for the death of his partner – a tried and true motivation in cop movies everywhere – but since the heroin was stolen from a Federal evidence warehouse this brings in the FBI and Caine is forced to partner up with by-the-book Special Agent Arwood “Larry” Smith (Brian Benben).  To say they don’t get along at first is a bit of an understatement, but also pretty much a given in this genre.

 

“Hell, I’m Special Agent Cliché, glad to be working with you.”

At its core, the plot is a straightforward formulaic cop thriller, with an added layer of alien intervention, and it follows the standard cliched plot as if it were on a timetable. It’s the introduction of an otherworldly antagonist armed with lethal CDs that spices things up. Aliens in movies come to Earth for a variety of reasons but harvesting heroin-laced human endorphins for profit may sound original but it feels more like a forced attempt to inject sci-fi elements into a cop movie rather than a seamlessly integrated into the storyline. The premise lacks originality, borrowing heavily from the buddy cop genre without offering a fresh take or innovative twist, and no, the alien drug dealer is not enough of a twist to sell this movie. But that wasn’t enough for director Craig R. Baxley, not only do we have the White Boys hunting our heroes, who think it was Caine who stole their heroin, but we also have an alien cop (Jay Bilas) trying to track down Talec, which is complicated even further when the Feds step in to cover up all the killings so that they can get a hold of some of that high tech lethal alien weaponry, all in the name of homeland defence of course.

 

“Shall we pull out our dicks and start measuring?”

Stray Observations:

• The alien crash lands in a downtown Christmas tree lot which had me wondering if the script had been ghostwritten by Shane Black.
• Victor Manning kills Caine’s partner because he knows he’s an undercover cop, yet he never even considers that such a police sting would have a backup of some kind. Manning was just lucky that Caine had been distracted by a nearby robbery.
• The extraterrestrial drug dealer’s flying discs of death would later find a home in the third Hellraiser film, where a Cenobite shoots out killer CDs. Who says good ideas can’t be recycled?
• Caine is given a very swanky apartment as a fun counterpoint to his rough street persona, but it does raise the question “Just how much does an L.A. narcotics detective get paid?”
• The death of the alien cop proves these aliens are not invulnerable so Talec’s survival after being shot multiple times must be attributed to his body armour, sadly, our heroes don’t take that into account as they never try and shoot him in the head.

 

“I’m wearing level-five plot armour.”

While Lundgren’s physicality and on-screen charisma are undeniable, I Come in Peace suffers from the usual wooden dialogue and a lack of character depth found in these types of parts and the interactions between the “buddy cops” often felt forced, failing to evoke genuine emotional investment. The attempt to inject humour into the narrative through the banter between Caine and his partner doesn’t always land, making the film feel tonally inconsistent as is the forced relationship between Caine and his long-suffering girlfriend (Betsy Brantley), whose job is to bust Caine’s balls while also providing exposition as the police coroner. I do give the film points for not having the coroner eat a sandwich while working on a body.

 

Instead, she’ll chew a piece off Lundgren later.

While the film delivers its fair share of action sequences it often feels disconnected from the overarching plot and the transition between intense shootouts and the alien drug dealer’s nefarious activities lacks coherence, resulting in a narrative that struggles to maintain a consistent tone. The alien’s modus operandi, using CDs as lethal weapons, is more laughable than menacing and it fails to establish a genuine sense of threat. The attempt to inject humour through the partnership with Brian Benben’s character also falls flat due to uninspired dialogue and lacklustre chemistry between the two leads.

 

“I’m starting to feel a little alienated.”

In conclusion, I Come in Peace struggles to transcend its era and the genre and fails, ultimately becoming a relic of ’90s action cinema and while it may hold appeal for fans seeking a nostalgic trip down memory lane, and despite Lundgren’s earnest efforts and some explosive action the film’s derivative plot, the stilted dialogue and dated special effects prevent it from achieving the status as a cult classic. Overall, I Come in Peace remains a fun if forgettable entry in the genre, one that was unable to rise above the limitations of its time.