Over on Kung Pew Video, I’ve been revisiting the direct-to-video relics that raised us. This week: Excessive Force!
The Next Action Star
Thomas Ian Griffith shoulda been a much bigger action star.
He had the looks.
He had the charisma.
He had the kicks.
And…he could actually act.
So why did his career hit a brick wall while Norris, Van Damme, and Seagal became household names?
The answer might be Excessive Force.
What Happened?
One of the things I really like about reviewing these kinds of movies is getting the chance to shine a light on films that deserve a broader audience and more conversation around them. I’m not talking about hidden, misunderstood masterpieces. Just solid, competent action flicks that no one ever seems to talk about.
And that’s exactly what Excessive Force is.
Released in 1993 by New Line Cinema, Excessive Force was a legit attempt to launch Thomas Ian Griffith as Hollywood’s next action hero.
Unfortunately, that just wasn’t in the cards.
The movie landed right in the middle of two heavy hitters that May: Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and Cliffhanger. Dragon opened the week before and karate chopped its way to a 63.5 million dollar box office. And Cliffhanger came out the week after and ended up grossing 255 million. Those two movies sucked all of the oxygen out of the room and left Excessive Force gasping for air.
The movie flopped hard, barely scraping in a million bucks against a 13 million dollar budget and Griffith…never got another chance to show he had the chops to go toe to toe with the big boys. And sadly for us martial arts movie fans, one of the most charismatic and fun martial arts actors of the era faded into obscurity.
Thankfully, decades later, an entirely new generation discovered him as Terry Silver in Cobra Kai. Getting to see him slide back into that role with the same confidence is gratifying but it’s also kinda bittersweet.
The Back of the VHS
Excessive Force’s plot is pretty straightforward. Griffith plays Terry McCain, a Chicago detective who always gets his man, even if he has to bend the rules or kick a few faces to do it. He’s hell-bent on busting Burt Young’s mob boss Sal DiMarco, but when his partners, played by Tony Todd and Tom Hodges, are murdered, he finds himself caught between corrupt cops, mobsters, and old friends whose loyalties seem to be shifting.
And that’s really all you need to know about the plot. Excessive Force isn’t trying to reinvent the genre or be clever or subversive. It’s just trying to tell a gritty, urban action story with lots of shootouts, kicks, and a few explosions to boot.
And it 100% succeeds in its mission.
Thomas Ian Griffith
I’m gonna to make a bold statement, but it’s one I’ll stand by: I think this movie lives and dies on the strength of its lead, and I think Griffith TKOs this thing.
He’s charismatic, likable, good-looking, and he’s one bad mofo. And he can tickle the hell out of the ivories.
But more on that later.
From the moment he shows up, he exudes the kind of easy confidence that makes you believe he’s been doing this for years. And while Griffith hadn’t had a lot of experience carrying major studio films, he’d already spent years performing. He danced, acted, sang, played music, and by the time Hollywood came calling, he was already a black belt with tons of experience performing. Maybe that’s why he comes across so naturally on screen. He’s not just a martial artist trying to act. He’s an experienced performer — who also happens to be a skilled martial artist. Griffith isn’t wooden. He delivers his lines effortlessly, and he’s just as comfortable trading jokes with James Earl Jones as he is kicking mobsters in the face.
And speaking of those kicks…as a lifelong taekwondo guy, this movie is like catnip for me.
If you know what you’re looking at, you can tell right away that Griffith is a TKD guy. He’s dropping axe kicks, crescent kicks, and reverse hook kicks the way Schwarzenegger drops one-liners. The choreography takes complete advantage of his impressive 6’5″ frame and graceful kicks. Martial arts movies from this era are filled with taekwondo practitioners, but the way Griffith showcases these signature Korean kicks just warms my heart.
The Supporting Cast
The other thing that separates Excessive Force from a lot of the other DTV action movies that flooded video stores and late night cable in this era is the supporting cast.
James Earl Jones as Jake doesn’t get to do a lot here, but he elevates the whole movie in just a few scenes.There’s a great sequence where Terry joins Jake on stage at the jazz club he owns, Griffith playing the piano while Jones appears to play saxophone. Jones isn’t actually playing, but Griffith is. The two men smile and laugh, and within just a few scenes you buy that their friendship is real. It’s also fun seeing a serious actor like Jones show up in movies like this and Best of the Best. Whatever the genre, the man always brings a sense of authority that legitimizes everything he’s in.
Charlotte Lewis, who some of you might remember from The Golden Child with Eddie Murphy, plays Terry’s estranged fashion model wife. She brings a nice touch of warmth and femininity to the dreary urban setting, making her and Terry’s relationship feel believable while humanizing him in the process. And yes, for you men of culture out there, she does showcase some of her ahem assets in a brief love scene with Griffith.
Then you’ve got Lance Henriksen.
And although he can’t compete with…assets, by this point in his career he’d starred in Aliens, The Terminator, Hard Target, and he’d even done the hero thing in Savage Dawn. How can you not love Lance Henriksen, man? He’s just one of those guys that you love to see in movies like this.
Tony Todd is another bright spot to the proceedings. Whether you know him from Candyman, The Crow, or Tom Savini’s excellent remake of Night of the Living Dead, Todd has a commanding screen presence that makes even small roles memorable. For some reason in this, he’s always got a single tear rolling down his cheek, and it just makes the performance stand out. It gives his character depth and humanity without a single word of backstory. That’s just talent right there.
And Burt Young…
I mean, come on.
It’s Paulie from the Rocky movies. Young had a gift for playing these kinds of world-weary characters, and the way he plays DiMarco brings nuance to what could have been a completely rote and boring character.
But none of these actors are reinventing the wheel here. They’re just doing what they always did in movies like this, and sometimes that’s all a movie like Excessive Force needs.
A Lost Corner of Action Cinema
One of the things I realized while rewatching this movie is how much I miss this particular brand of action movie. And it’s a very specific brand. There was a stretch during the late 80s and early 90s where we got a lot of these gritty urban crime thrillers that blended organized crime with martial arts.
Movies like Code of Silence.
Raw Deal.
And Red Heat.
These movies were usually set in winter. Everything had a blue-grey tint to it. Wet streets reflected neon signs. Everyone’s wearing long overcoats, concealing rifles or, hell, maybe even swords. Steam rises from manholes and anything else the set designers thought might look good with steam coming out of it. Signs of urban decay tell you you’ve left the safe streets of your small town behind. You were in the big city. And life in the big city is dangerous.
It’s a very specific aesthetic, but it’s one I love. And rewatching Excessive Force made me want to immediately rewatch every other movie in this little subgenre that I own and scour tubi for all of the ones I haven’t seen yet.
Ordering Fast Food and Expecting High Cuisine
Now when I review movies like this, of course I always look at Wikipedia and IMDB to make sure I have all of my ducks in a row and my facts backed up as best as possible. And when I looked at the wiki for Excessive Force, I was a little surprised to see how much critics hated this when it came out.
Now I’ve seen this movie a million zillion times and it is a favorite, but I’m willing to concede that I sometimes watch these movies through nostalgia lenses. And tastes can change over the years, so I thought maybe I would see some of what the critics saw.
But I never did.
Is the movie perfect? No. Of course not.
But watching Excessive Force and expecting it to be Goodfellas is like getting pissed when your Chick-fil-A order isn’t lobster. Lobster ain’t what Excessive Force promises. It promises shootouts, cliches, and a tall, good-looking guy kicking mobsters in the face for an hour and a half.
And that’s exactly what it gives us. And to be honest, sometimes–frankly, most of the time these days–that’s all I’m looking for.
Final Thoughts
Watching Excessive Force in 2026 only reinforces the notion that Thomas Ian Griffith should have been an action star.
Maybe he just missed his window by a few years. Maybe the DTV market had already started shifting away from these types of movies. Maybe the movie got squished between two higher profile movies with wider releases and much bigger marketing budgets. Whatever the reason, it’s hard to watch this now without wondering what might have been.
Fortunately, Griffith got a chance to shine again in Cobra Kai. But if you want to see why some of us never forgot him in the first place, Excessive Force is the movie I’d tell you to watch.
It’s competently made, entertaining, and it’s packed with recognizable faces.
And for me, it deserves a lot more attention than it gets.
Kung Pew Video is where I dig into the neon-drenched, straight-to-VHS corner of film history. New episodes weekly. Be kind. Subscribe. See ya in the VHS wasteland.
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