Code of Silence (1985) Chuck Norris And Robo-Cop Team Up To Fight Drug Lord Henry Silva

Day 27 Code of Silence from 1985

Tagline – “Eddie Cusack’s a good cop having a very bad day.“

Who’s our hero today?
Chuck Norris is back again! This time he plays Eddie “Stainless Steel” Cusack.

Had I seen this one on VHS back in the day?
Having permanently borrowed the families Panasonic video player and re-housed it in it’s new rightful place, my bedroom home cinema. Now connected to my Sony Trinitron telly, this is where all the action happened. I’d probably rented Code Of Silence around the same time as Missing In Action (1984). If I’m honest I didn’t remember that much. The garbage truck at the beginning and the plank of wood across the alley way for the robbery came flooding back to me. Strangely I didn’t recall the robot cop assistant! Either because it was cheesy even back then or I didn’t get to finish the film!

Quick plot run down.
When two gangster families return to gang war over drugs, money and family death’s. A Chicago cop finds himself caught right bang in the middle. When the bloodshed and carnage picks up too much pace it’s time for this maverick cop to shut things down. The hard way.

Does the hero have a day job?
Eddie Cusack is a Sergeant Detective within the Chicago Police department.

What’s our heroes special skills?
Observant, resilient and his own boss. Master in many disciplines of martial arts. An all round kick ass cop.

Heroes weapon of choice?
Eddie’s sidearm is a Dan Wesson Model 15 and later adds a Mossberg 500AT pistol grip shotgun to his beating down bad guys arsenal.

Heroes drink of choice?
Eddie loves his beer just like his alter-ego J.J. McQuade. Here some lovely person has compiled all his beer drinking moments in Lone Wolf McQuade.

Does hero have a sidekick?
Well he would do if his sidekick didn’t keep running off to moonlight on another job! His partner is Dorato and played by Dennis Farina in his first big film role before he would shoot to mega stardom playing all kind of gangsters and cops. The brilliant thing here is Dennis Farina was actually a real life Chicago Detective and was still technically on the force whilst filming. It wouldn’t be long before Dennis was a household name in many front room’s when he played the tough Chicago cop Lt. Mike Torello in the TV drama series Crime Story. But before Dennis takes all the limelight, even with him not in it much (not a spoiler). Eddie gets assigned a new rookie partner called Nick Kopalas (Joe Guzaldo).

Hot girl? Damsel in distress or ass kicker?
Diana Luna (Molly Hagan) is the strong minded and fancy free daughter of mafia Dad Tony Luna (Mike Genovese). Diana is desperate to have nothing to do with the family business. She works with children and loves visiting friends and art galleries etc. Unfortunately her Dad’s careless actions to take over as the main drug lord, spectacularly backfires. Resulting in revenge and retribution of family members. Poor Diana soon finds herself caught up in the firing line.

Who’s the main baddie?
The vicious leader of the drug’s gang known as The Comacho’s is Luis Comacho (Henry Silva). It’s weird because everyone is terrified of him but he seems like such a nice guy? Just look at that smile! He goes round offering everyone a necktie made in Colombia! Rather than say thank you they just look horrified and hotfoot out of there screaming!

Baddies special skills?
Having such unique bone structure and scaring the bejesus out of everyone.

Psycho baddies rating out of ten? 9/10
He’s as mad as hell and filled with pure revenge hatred.

Heroes balls of steel and anger ratings out of ten? 10/10
They don’t call his Stainless Steel for nothing! Eddie’s ball’s smack together like Newton’s Cradle.

Surely it features a training montage scene?
It certainly does. It is a Chuck Norris movie after all. It would be rude not to include him working out in his very own cop shop dojo. When all the other cops are sitting about eating doughnuts, Eddie goes kick crazy slamming his feet into his poor sparing partners gloved hands.

Does it feature an impossible mission?
Not with Eddie combined with his new computerized partner blowing the shit out of everything.

Does the hero get a chance to show off their muscles?
The furry ferret is on show during his training session.

Will I be needing to pause the video player? AKA are there any boobies?
I guess the fingers needed a rest day. Lowers head and sulks out the room!

Sex scene?
Perv free day I’m afraid!

Any good totally random surprise scenes?
The introduction to a new police robot The Prowler was pretty random. There I was thinking why would they go to the trouble of making that piece of crap for this movie! Imagine my surprise when I see that the blooming thing was real! The PROWLER was a mid-1980s experimental robot mobile sentry gun device built by a now defunct company called Robot Defence Systems. It was billed as the first outdoor robotic sentry. PROWLER stood for Programmable Robot Observer With Logical Enemy Response. It looked shit! However it packed some serious shit! Two M60 machine guns and a grenade launcher. It was basically a remote controlled, rocket equipped, crime fighting robot tank and the perfect partner for Chuck’s gangster smashing Eddie.

Films body count? Low/Medium/High? 
Massive!!!!!!

Explosion ratio? Low/Medium/High?
Massive!!!!!

How many stuntmen probably really died making this film?
Blown up, flying off the elevated train line, kicked in the head, run over by the Prowler! I’m sure they were all ok and just another day at the office.

Any cool car chases?
Yes an awesome one underneath a tunnel and car park complex. It did feature a few sped up footage moments which all most went Keystone Cops on us but they reigned it in and it was one really cool car chase. Box ticked.

Best lines
Eddie Cusack – “When I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you.”

Any other familiar faces and actors pop up?
The legend that is Ralph Foody who is known to many (should be all) as Johnny The Gangster in the film Angels With Filthy Souls in Home Alone 1 and 2. “Keep the change you filthy animal”

Production Credits
Code of Silence is directed by Andrew Davis who has a good selection of action movies under his belt with The Fugitive (1993), The Package (1989) and Under Siege (1992) being the better ones. Also Collateral Damage (2002), Chain Reaction (1996) and the fun Above the Law (1988). It is written by Dennis Shryack and Michael Butler who had work on Flashpoint (1984), Pale Rider (1985) Turner and Hooch (1989) and The Gauntlet (1977) together.

Cheese-O-Meter! Low/Medium/High?
It’s not cheesy at all for a good run but then the robot cop turns up, the rubik’s cube and the whole end pushes it to a medium-bodied cheddar.

IMDB score rating – 6.1/10

Wolfman ACTION & FUN rating – 8/10

Wolfman over all film rating – 6.5/10

Closing thoughts………………………………………….
I liked this a lot to be honest. It’s two film’s rolled into one. The first half is more inline with a gritty 70s cop movie, like a Dirty Harry off-shoot. It’s then dated back to the 80s when Chuck sits playing with the Rubik’s Cube and the rubbish robocop turns up. It gets dark as The Comacho’s turn up the revenge heat before turning into the usual B-movie crazy action sequence at the end. That said the end is pure Chuck Norris action and that’s really what we are here for. Code Of Silence is up there with one of Chuck best films I’d say.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on the films if you want but please don’t feel you need to as I know it’s pretty relentless this month. However, most important, have fun with the movies.

Keep it filmy…. Mikey Wolf.