Matty saddles up with one of Jim Wynorski’s very best.

“You fast?”

Transposing the cowboy flick to ‘90s Los Angeles, AGAINST THE LAW is a revisionist western for the Tarantino generation; a white-hot tale of an outlaw and a marshal packed with nods to the genre’s history and a swaggering sense of po-mo cool. Think Unforgiven (1992) by way of Natural Born Killers (1994) and Heat (1995) and you’d be somewhere close. 

Channelling his inner Eastwood, Richard Grieco has a ball as the villain of the piece; a modern-day gunslinger, replete with a six-shooter, blasting his way through police officers in impromptu quick-draw contests as he heads to Hollywood seeking gory glory. Nick Mancuso, meanwhile, is the burnt-out detective both on the case and in the bandito’s sights, after a bust brings the weary lawman the kind of televised infamy Grieco’s attention-hungry psycho craves. 

Beginning life as a spec script by Steve Mitchell and the self-proclaimed ‘World’s Greatest Recording Artist!’, Bob ‘Mr. Moderation’ Sheridan, Against the Law caught the eye of Mitchell’s old Chopping Mall (1986) oppo, Jim Wynorski. Originally, Wynorski was only going to produce the project, leaving the reins for Mitchell who planned to cast their other pal, John Terlesky, in the role that’d eventually be bagged by Grieco. However, as legend has it, Wynorski was so taken with the material that he decided to helm Against the Law as well.

The result is one of the prolific auteur’s finest achievements. 

A small but comical continuity error aside (how many bullets can a Smith & Wesson revolver actually fire?!), Against the Law is a hip, snappy, and ambitious thriller. It’s part gritty exploration of two weirdly symbiotic characters, and part condemnation of the media’s preoccupation with violence and how they afford serial killers mythic, folk hero status. His vastly superior second stab at the oater after the dreary Hard Bounty (1995), Wynorski directs Mitchell and Sheridan’s intelligent screenplay with bollock-knotting authority. He’s in tremendous form throughout, toying with western codes and conventions; relishing the scenes of drama, action and satire; coaxing archetypal – yet slyly subversive – performances from his rock solid ensemble (Grieco and Mancuso are joined by Nancy Allen, Steven Ford, Heather Thomas, and a young Jaime Pressly [1]); and flexing his stylistic muscles with the mastery of a prize-winning bodybuilder.   

Assembled under Wynorski’s Sunset Films International banner — ostensibly the low-budget arm of frequent collaborators CineTel — Against the Law debuted on cable network Cinemax on 6th March 1999 and landed on U.S. video three weeks later, on 23rd March, via Peachtree Entertainment. In the U.K., the film was acquired by long-time CineTel distributor Warner Bros. in the same Sunset package as Vampirella (1996), Demolition University (1997), Storm Trooper (1998), and the aforementioned Hard Bounty. They issued it on cassette through their home video wing in mid-2000.

Why Against the Law hasn’t featured on countless ‘Hidden Gem’ and ‘Best Tarantino Cash-In’ lists in the years since is disgraceful and needs rectifying immediately. 

USA ● 1997 ● Thriller, Western ● 85mins

Richard Grieco, Nick Mancuso, Nancy Allen, and Steven Ford ● Dir. Jim Wynorski ● Wri. Steve Mitchell & Bob Sheridan  

[1] Supposedly, Pressly’s brief turn in Against the Law was instrumental in co-producer CineTel’s decision to have her take the lead in Poison Ivy: The New Seduction (1997). Despite being released after Kurt Voss’ sexy sequel, Against the Law was shot in January 1996; Poison Ivy: The New Seduction was shot in January ‘97.