Off Limits is a sweaty, grimy piece set in Saigon during the Vietnam war, and has little to do with the actual conflict itself. In the filthy whorehouses of the district, someone is viciously murdering prostitutes, sparking an investigation by the U.S. Military. They bring two plainclothes detectives, tough, idealistic, violent Buck Mcgriff (Willem Dafoe) and flippant, goofball Albaby Perkins (Gregory Hines, superb), who hides his cunning intuition behind the sarcasm. They are law enforcement in a land without a soul, let alone law. The chaos and confusion of the war puts a sheen of distraction over their efforts to find and stop this monster. Their commanding officer (Fred Ward) has few answers for them, and they are led on hunches into some sordid realms of investigation, from unruly potential suspects in the core (David Alan Grier, Keith David), and a demented, sadomasochistic Army Colonel with some truly strange ideas of a good time (Scott Glenn, bugfuck crazy). They are lead here and there on a wild goose chase, until it becomes apparent that the answer may be a little closer to home than they thought. Dafoe and Hines hold the whole pile of scummy intrigue together with their well oiled performances, and even when it threatens to go off the rails, their committed work steers it back on track. Its like a buddy cop flick with none of the laughs, set in a hell half a world away where there's no protocol, no backup, and no one speaks English. Enough to make a tense, unnerving thriller in my books.
Review of Off Limits
