Third World Cop
Palm Pictures
Cast: Paul Campbell, Audrey Reid, Mark Danvers
Extras: “Making Of” Featurette
Rating:
Kingston, Jamaica, is the locale for ’Third World Cop,’ a ferocious action film that now makes its DVD debut through Palm Pictures. It is the story of Capone (Paul Campbell) a tough cop who is transferred back to his hometown Kingston. Full of vivid memories of the past, Capone soon finds out that all his friends of old have become criminals to he local mob. Especially Ratty (Mark Danvers) has risen to become the right hand of the don, and suddenly the two face a huge dilemma. Their past gets in the way with their future and gradually the film takes viewers on a tour-de-force to the movie’s violent inevitable ending.
The movie is presented in a fullscreen presentation on this DVD. The transfer is clear and clean, without blemishes or defects. The presentation has a very natural looking quality, rendering the movie very naturally and especially the sunlit outdoor scenes look very neutral. Blacks are deep and solid in the transfer but highlights appear slightly muted. Colors are strong and finely delineated without bleeding or noise. Some slight compression artifacts are visible in the transfer in the form of occasional pixelation and banding, resulting in a loss of detail in various scenes.
The disc features a Dolby Surround audio track and a 5.1 channel Dolby Digital mix. The audio of the movie is defined by the multitude of powerful and pumping reggae tracks. Well integrated and with good dynamics, the music is a real highlight of the movie, creating a very vibrant world and firmly rooting the Jamaican setting of the film. Dialogues are well-integrated and always understandable, although the heavy accents that tinge the film make the subtitles are very welcome addition.
’Third World Cop’ is Jamaica’s highest grossing film ever and it is easy to see that the movie would indeed appeal to young Jamaican audiences. Streetwise, hip, home-made and cleverly plotted, ’Third World Cop’ has everything to you want to see in a mob action thriller. Just like ’New Jack City’ is a film that perfectly documented the state of young, impoverished urban Americans, ’Third World Cop’ does the same for Jamaicans in the hopeless and harsh ghettos of Kingston.