Alien Nation
They get drunk on sour milk. They have two hearts and bald,  spotted heads. They're highly intelligent, but if you drop them in  seawater they'll melt into a puddle of goop. They're "Newcomers," and  they arrived as refugees in a massive alien slave-ship, quarantined for  three years and then reluctantly accepted as citizens of Earth. To some  humans--including seasoned Los Angeles cop Matt Sykes (James Caan)--the  Newcomers are unwelcome "slags." Sykes's own virulent "speciesism"  intensifies when Newcomer thugs kill his partner, but he sees logic in  teaming up with Sam Francisco (Mandy Patinkin), the first Newcomer  detective in the LAPD. Francisco's Newcomer knowledge is vital to their  investigation of an alien drug ring, and a friendship grows from  life-or-death circumstances.A routine cop thriller with a comedic sci-fi twist,Alien  Nation>has two things working in its favor: Caan and Patinkin form  a memorable duo, and the basic premise--as conceived by Rockne S.  O'Bannon (who later developed the film as a TV series)--intelligently  accounts for the sociological impact of an alien population. The subtle  point is made that humans are extraordinary beings who squander their  potential, and the evil of drugs--as dealt by a social-climbing  Newcomer played by Terence Stamp--leads to a crisis that threatens to  generate global intolerance. These points are well presented in a  context of overly familiar plotting and standard-issue sarcasm. It's  entertaining for a brisk 90 minutes, but in its attempt to be widely  appealing,Alien Nationglosses over issues that might have made  it more uniquely provocative.--Jeff Shannon