TITLE: I Come In Peace
STARRING: Dolph Lundgren, Brian Benben, Betsy Brantley, Matthias Hues, Jay Bilas
DIRECTOR: Craig R. Baxley
STUDIO: Triumph Releasing Corporation
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 91 min
RELEASED: September 28, 1990

By Justin Polak
Co-founder, Ambassador to the Mushroom Kingdom

WARNING: Throughout this article, I spoil various plot points of this movie. The movie is a couple of decades old, but I know some people are sensitive to those things.

As a child, I hung out with my cousins a lot. One of them happened to be only a couple of years older than me, but when you are a kid that small age gap makes all the difference in the world. He was once a child of the 80s that loved action movies, especially those with intense violence. Wanting to be as cool as my older cousin, I followed action movies as much as he did as a result. As a rule of thumb, the bloodier the movie was, the better it seemed. So yeah, we’re talking about movies ranging from the late 80s to early 90s.

Of course, everyone from my generation remembers Terminator 2, Rambo, Die Hard, Commando, Demolition Man, etc. Well, the random mess that is my brain suddenly recalled a long forgotten 1990 action flick. I had to have watched this movie on VHS at least a dozen times. However, other movies released around that time like Total Recall drew my attention away from it.

Image from hardassrecords.blogspot.com.

I Come in Peace stars Dolph Lundgren, who most people remember as the intimidating Russian boxer Ivan Drago from Rocky IV. He also was one of many action stars that appeared in The Expendables this past summer. It’s actually too bad that Lundgren didn’t become more of an action star akin to Schwarzenegger or Stallone. Though I Come in Peace doesn’t stand out in the public eye when people think of old action movies, upon re-watching it I was really impressed how well he carried the movie. It’s not like the guy didn’t have work throughout the years, but he should have been given more lead roles. One might think that my childhood memories are glorifying his performance, but I honestly forgot he was in the movie until I tracked it down recently.

The movie is worth watching for the ridiculous premise alone. Lundgren plays Detective Jack Caine who is trying put a stop to the White Boys. No I am not referring to an obscure rap duo. The White Boys are skyscraper dwelling, white collar drug dealers in the middle of trying to push a major amount of heroin they stole from the feds. They must be a successful bunch because even the lowliest lackeys wear expensive suits and drive the latest sports cars.

At the movie’s outset, the White Boys score two major victories against the Houston Police Department. Jack’s partner gets killed after a botched undercover sting operation that was supposed to bust Victor Manning, a major player in the White Boys. Jack was unfortunately distracted from his back up duties while stopping a robbery next door. Oh, and what about that heroin shipment they stole? It was in a federal reserve that was promptly blown up right after the gang made the score.

Normally, a movie would take that premise and run with it. Not so in I Come in Peace! After the White Boys kill Jack’s partner, Victor leaves some of the White Boys behind to pack up the heroin. A strange visitor enters the room unnoticed and launches a flying disc that cuts through the bad guys like a hot knife through butter. He quickly steals the drugs and escapes right before Jack unnecessarily rolls in the scene finding everyone dead.

That wasn’t the first time the audience was shown this disc-wielding murderer. Before Jack, the White Boys, or anything else is revealed, the movie opens with a man’s car getting destroyed by an object from the sky. A monstrous figure that looks almost like Christopher Lambert emerges from the wreckage and walks right up to the man and says, “I come in peace.”  The fate of the man is left unknown …until we see what the alien does to people later.

That’s right, I said it was an alien. I Come in Peace not only has businessmen with a silly gang name as antagonists, but an evil alien enters the fray to mix things up!  But why is he here claiming he comes in peace when all he seems to be doing is murdering people and stealing drugs?

Image from videodetective.com.

The answer is very simple. The alien needed the drugs to forcibly inject a lethal amount of heroin in unsuspecting victims. He does not give them a chance to die from an overdose, though. He stabs their heads to steal a liquid from the brain. Why? Because on the planet where he comes from, endorphins released from the human brain as a result of drug use is a rare and potent drug itself. Instead of a movie that deals with privileged drug dealers, it instead focuses on extraterrestrial drug dealing. Why did this premise never catch on?

Before I revisited this film, the first thing I remembered was the alien weaponry. You see, a good alien eventually joins the battle. He eventually gets killed by the bad alien and gives the protagonists his weapon before passing on. The gun has multiple settings on it referred to as levels. The higher the level, the more explosive the guns are. A memorable scene has Jack’s new FBI partner nearly killing a couple of White Boys with the gun right after exclaiming, “That’s it, these guys are level two!” Well, as a kid it seemed pretty damn cool…

Image from filmschoolrejects.com

Despite how silly this movie sounds, any action movie buff should check it out if they have not heard of it. Just be prepared for hilariously over the top acting by any and all minor characters, as well as some of the other leads. Besides the set up, don’t expect this movie to do anything different compared to others from its time. If you took shots of beer every time an action movie cliché was brought up, you’d be half dead and wasted. Also, this movie was set up for a potential sequel that never came into fruition as Victor Manning was established to have escaped to Rio early in the movie.

The climax ends with one of the best one-liners I have ever heard. After the bad alien is incapacitated, the following exchange occurs between him and Jack.

Bad Alien: I come in peace.
Jack Caine: And you go in pieces, asshole.

I’m sure you can guess how the alien died.

Front page image from latinoreview.com.