Surely one of the most obscure, low-budget films to receive a major label home video release (thanks, Sony), it's not even clear what the original title of this film was. There's a disclaimer in front of the feature which indicates that the title has been changed for the video release, but the title card for the film consists of the single word 'Shot'. So was this released to theatres as Shot, or as something else all together? We're not likely to find out any time soon. Death Shot starts off with a low rent drug transaction gone bad: one gang of hairy thugs accuses another gang of shorting them $200 (!) and end up getting caps popped in their collective asses. The jaunty blues-funk score of Area Code 615 then commences, supplying us with a clue of where this feature might have been shot: most likely Tennessee, from whence the band sprang in the late 1960s. Wherever it is, it looks COLD, with snow either falling or on the ground throughout the entire film. There's also lots of violence, as a pair of hairy, not-by-the-books cops chase after the motley drug lords who spend their time hanging out at the Mr. Quick fast food establishment when they're not pushing dope on the local kids. It all adds up to a gritty good time for admirers of regional cinema and fast-paced crime dramas. I'd love to learn more about this feature, but I suspect the DVD commentary is still pretty far in the future. Postscript: according to the credit crawl, Death Shot was filmed in East Central Illinois.

Make no mistake that this was an independent production made and financed by a group of college film students shot in and around the campus town of Champagne, Illinois. Essentially, two loose-cannon cops running into all sorts of trouble while trying to take down a drug kingpin. There is a lot of car chasing and shootouts to please the viewer.

Renegade detectives Ross and Wilson decide to take down major drug kingpin Blasi. Writer/director Mitch Brown keeps the entertaining story moving along at a speedy clip, maintains a hard cynical tone throughout, stages the exciting car chases and shoot outs with flair and skill, and makes nice use out of such practical locations as an open field, a train yard, and a parking garage. Richard C. Watt and Chuck Russell are appropriately scruffy as the maverick cops on the case while Frank Himes makes for a pleasingly nasty villain. The aerial photography provides an impressive sense of scope. Considering that this movie was made for a modest fifteen thousand dollars, it's competently put together and manages to milk a lot of production value with its minimal resources. A cool little flick.