Hardened cop turns Clearasil cowboy

Press, 26 January 1988, Page 30

Hardened cop turns Clearasil cowboy

The hard-boiled detective story has changed. So has the detective. “Under Cover” has most of the elements. Good lookin’ dames, lots of suspense, gunplay, and a cop determined that the crook that shot his partner will be brought to justice.

The difference is that this hard-headed cop spends the video trying to look young enough to pass as a high school senior to infiltrate the drug scene. A “Clearasil cowboy.” Going unshaven is not

By

DAVID CLARKSON

an option. He also has to shave his chest. What would Philip Marlowe have to say about that? But for all that, it is a fine thriller — M rated, 95 minutes, and released in New Zealand by RCA/ Columbia/Hoyts. David Neidorf stars as the young policeman who joins the under cover school narcotics programme in Port Allen, South Carolina, after his partner is killed there. The film gets on with

its job as a mystery story without dwelling on the arguments against drug use by teenagers. Neidorf was last seen playing the part of Tex in Oliver Stone’s Vietnam film, “Platoon.” It also stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as Neidorf’s partner in the school drugs programme. The film is the first directed by John Stockwell, who appeared as an actor in the supernatural thriller, “Christine,” and “Dangerously Close.”