Ambushed

Plot synopsis:
Mid-level drug dealers Eddie and Frank grow restless with their limited growth potential and set up a meeting with their supplier, Madsen. Instead of negotiating, Frank impulsively murders Madsen and takes his cocaine. Eddie's excitement quickly turns to apprehension when he hears about Madsen's death, but Frank talks him into bluffing their way back into drug lord Vincent Camastra's good graces. At the same time, dirty cop Jack Reiley investigates the murder and is annoyed when DEA agent Maxwell takes over the investigation. As Frank attempts to save his relationship with his naive girlfriend, Ashley, Reiley violently bullies his informants for information, and Camastra sends assassins to kill Eddie. After Eddie engages in a brief gunfight with the assassins, Camastra himself beats Eddie unconscious. Ashley, who has become suspicious of Frank's secretive lifestyle, is shocked when Kathy and Beverly, Eddie's friends, interrupt them to explain that Camastra has kidnapped Eddie.
Beverly, an undercover DEA agent, is in a relationship with Maxwell, who is concerned that she has gone too deep. However, she protests when he requests that she abandon the case. Beverly and Maxwell expand their investigation to include Reiley, but they are forbidden from taking action until they can also get Camastra. Frustrated, they bide their time until Camastra makes his move. Frank visits Camastra, and Eddie successfully buys them two days time to pay Camastra back. At the nightclub Frank owns, Reiley attempts to blackmail him, only to be shot in his hand and left on the side of the road. Unable to explain his predicament, Reiley is put on unpaid leave and learns that Internal Affairs is preparing a case against him. Forced to abandon his plans to retire comfortably, Reiley becomes even more unstable and kidnaps Ashley. He breaks into Eddie's apartment, takes Kathy and Beverly hostage, and waits for Frank and Eddie to return.
As Maxwell and his team race to the apartment, Frank and Eddie discuss their future plans. Frank wants to retire from the criminal life; Eddie, while wishing Frank well, says that he will stay in the business and take over. Frank admits that he will miss the excitement, but he wants a normal life with Ashley, whom he plans to marry. Frank, Eddie, and the DEA agents all enter the apartment within minutes of each other. Panicked, Reiley kills several people, including Eddie and Ashley. In the chaos, Beverly sets Kathy free, and Reiley and Frank escape. Maxwell corners Reiley, and they face off against each other; reinforcements arrive just as Maxwell subdues Reiley. In the last scene, Frank mourns the loss of Ashley and speculates on what he will do next, now that both his main plan and backup plan have been ruined.

Tags: violence

Review:
A movie about racial problems blended with good action..
This movie is generally okay but, it's not a movie I would call fantastic.
The movie generally has a good plot and a bit of adequate directing.
But however, the movie has a very poor setting which makes it look like a typical TV movie.
On the other hand, the movie lets us see the effects of racism and corruption in our American society incorporated into a lot of thrilling action.
It's a movie worth viewing when you are bored but, it's not a movie I would recommend to top action movie lovers..
Good little movie.
Sometimes movies that touches on race-sensitive issues comes out trite and panders to the liberal conscience.
Courtney Vance delivers a thoughtful performance as a cop who is struggling with his own race issues as he works to save a kid brainwashed by the KKK father.
Virginia Madsen is sexy as usual and Robert Patrick (The Terminator, X Files) is excellent.
William Forsythe is also great as a no bullshit cop.
The movie score is cool and reminds me of Ry Cooder.
It is well put together and director Ernest Dickerson deserves credit for that.
I am a fan of his work.
He earned his chops as Spike Lee's DP and if you want to see another Dickerson movie check out "{Never Die Alone".
All in all, "Ambushed" is a fine little movie and deserves audience consideration as a rental.
Check it out.
Tight, taut little character-based thriller that's ABOUT something!.
Clearly a small-budget, big passion undertaking.
Terrific cast.
The KKK milieu surrounds and informs the movie's big relationship--a black FBI detective framed for the murder of a Klansman who must go on the lam with the murdered Klansman's young son.
How the boy begins to question his father's beliefs and how the agent acquires compassion for this white-hating boy in the crucible of their enforced togetherness make for compelling viewing.
Gritty, truthful, iconoclastic offering in the tradition of "to Kill A Mockingbird.".
Prime Schlock.
Actually there have been quite a few features, made-fors, and miniseries shot in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, as this one was.
Wilmington has the second largest assemblage of studios in the country, outside of Burbank.
The problem is, most of the things shot there are turkeys.
Not including "Crimes of the Heart" and "Blue Velvet" and one or two others, which my own performances rendered memorable.
Considering the schlock as a class in itself, this probably rates a B.
It isn't as bad as it could be.
Of course it's filled with clichés.
Shoot outs take place in which thousands of rounds are exchanged with no one having to pause and reload their weapons.
A black detective on the run has to protect the racist 12-year-old son of a Klan member, and we know their relationship will evolve, and we know the direction that evolution will take.
The good guys are completely good, while the bad guys are somewhat less one dimensional -- let's say they have one and a half dimensions.
But it has a few interesting directorial touches; odd angles are used effectively and bodies and objects are moved around with efficiency.The racial issue is nicely handled.
A black man makes tender love to a white woman and it's treated matter-of-factly.
And the movie is as much watchable for what it doesn't include as for what it does: no slow-motion deaths, no car chases.
The acting is not bad, particularly on the part of the twelve-year-old racist.
Just before the climax, Shannon has a line, "Take him out to the cement factory." This refers to a real cement factory on Blue Clay Road which has been used as a location in several other films.
It served as a prison twice, in "Weeds" and again in "Everybody Wins." It's always good to see Dick Olson in a Wilmington movie, and he has a small part in just about every one, in this case, a motel manager.
He's a nice guy as well as a reliable character actor..
Great little TV movie!.
I was pleasantly surprised by this essentially a B-movie.
The acting is uniformly good.
Courtney B Vance and David Keith are particular favourites but the young actor who took the part of Eric was terrific as well.
Its refreshing to see a made for television movie with a good script, good acting and (for once) real driving!
The subject matter is topical, and for a South African viewer surprising in it's passion.
If this is the kind of B-movie Hollywood made I say Keep it up!!.
A waste of time..
"Ambushed" is no ordinary action flick.
It's much to bad to be ordinary.
One man walks toward another with a machine gun blazing.
The other man fires one round and fells the man with the greater fire power without so much as a nick from the hail of lead raining down on him.
Guess which one is the good guy.
Duh. Such is "Ambushed" through and through.
Not a good action flick, not a good drama, not a good movie, "Ambushed" fails on all levels with it's cast of B-movie veterans mechanically going through the motions almost as though they know they're making a real loser.
Not recommended for anyone..
Not recommended for anyone..
OK, could have been better.
This movie was ok.
It was nothing great, but it was watchable.
If you have anything better to do, don't watch this, but if you're absolutely bored, watch it.
I thought AMBUSHED was 'entertaining' - at times it was suspenseful and it had some good action scenes, but in parts it was also unintentionally funny - ex.
When the KKK is chasing the black policeman, they go through the sewer, and the KKK guy tells his comrade to go first - "Why not you?" "I'm wearing a suit." Maybe the filmmakers were trying to add some humor to this movie.
Whatever it was, I thought it was funny and quite out of place if this movie hoped to be serious and not absurd.