Outlaw Force

Year releasted: 1987

by Nathan Rabin
January 22nd, 2003

A musician's existence is often fraught with anxiety. The competition is fierce, the odds of making it slim. But in Outlaw Force, aspiring country musician David Heavener encounters an outlaw force more terrifying than online file-sharing and record-industry downsizing combined: a team of long-haired, country-music-hating nogoodniks who destroy his family. As the film opens, Heavener is entertaining some hillbillies at a county fair. Trouble lurks nearby, however, as a gang of disrespectful hooligans terrorizes a gas-station attendant, first by referring to him as "Gumby," then by pouring gasoline down his trousers. Paying homage to his cinematic forefathers, one orders the attendant to squeal like a pig, emphasizing his demand by noting that a switchblade-waving tough with the not-so-terrifying nickname of Pookie will "cut you open in two seconds." Ever the good Samaritan, Heavener intervenes on the luckless pump-jockey's behalf, scaring the crooks away with an unloaded shotgun. Back home, Heavener cleans his gun at the dinner table, finds out his wife is pregnant, and sings his daughter a song with a kid-friendly chorus asserting that "this honky's gonna honky-tonk tonight." Later, while Heavener sings about being a family man at a local honky-tonk, bad guys slip into his house, kill his wife, and kidnap his daughter. In the giant den of sin known as Los Angeles, ringleader Robert Bjorklund arranges to sell Heavener's daughter to a suit-clad child broker for five grand and three ounces of cocaine, a price well below market value. Looking for answers, Heavener travels to L.A., where he learns that the police department is hamstrung by a massive bureaucracy, rules that mollycoddle criminals, and persnickety, by-the-book cops like Frank Stallone. Stallone's more lawless partner (Paul L. Smith) admonishes the singer to "leave the detectiving to us," but an unconvinced Heavener investigates the matter himself. First, he crashes a porn-film shoot, where he learns from a helpful actress that his daughter's kidnappers are connected to a kiddie-porn merchant. The writer, director, producer, star, and musician then goes bucking for revenge, and after killing Bjorklund in a climactic rooftop shooting, Heavener is reunited with his daughter, just in time for end credits set to "It's Good To Have You Back Again," the last of many Heavener concoctions to litter the film's soundtrack.