Relentless

Watched July 14, 2014

1989
Starring: Leo Rossi, Robert Loggia, Judd Nelson, Meg Foster.

New York police officer Sam Dietz (Leo Rossi) has just gotten a promotion to detective but it comes with relocating to Los Angeles. At his new station, he is partnered with old pro Bill Malloy ( Robert Loggia) and their first case is investigating a man who was murdered in his bathroom. 

At the same time Buck Taylor (Judd Nelson) just got a letter from the police department that he failed the psychological part of his application to join the force. He is obviously maladjusted so this is just the thing that pushes him over the edge. He grabs the phone book, picks a number and decides to murder that person. 

Sam jumps in to trying to figure out who killed the guy in the shower, but his partner is reigning him in a bit. Buck continues to pick random people out of the phone book to murder. He is very careful about his kills, wearing gloves and leaving minimal evidence. But he does leave a note written on the page of the phone book that he used to find his victim. 

Buck has flashbacks to his childhood, it turns out that his father was a well respected cop. It also turns out that his dad was a total nutjob who abused Buck and trained him to be a police officer from the age of 5. What was when he taught him to shoot a gun and was disappointed that his wasn't an instant marksman. He also would make Buck do obstacle courses while shooting at him, so there is no surprise that Buck turned into a serial killer.

Sam puts several people to work doing file searches to find clues to who the murder could be, all the while Buck keeps killing. It turns out that the first man who was killed came into the police station to report a death threat call, but the cops didn't do anything about it. Sam keeps putting the clues together and figures out that Buck is the main suspect, but this as Buck finds Sam's wife and kid and takes them hostage. Sam shoots Buck multiple times and that ends the serial killings.

Judd Nelson is pretty creepy as a serial killer, but this movie is just pretty standard. Meg Foster plays Sam's wife and she has the craziest see through eyes, it is destracting from her fine performance as a concerned wife. Judd Nelson also wears these pretty crazy '50s outfits that in 1989 were probably terrible but are pretty hip today. His murder outfit is super crazy though,  an all black outfit of mock turtleneck with cut off cuffs and waistband and high waisted jeans.