There’s a certain electricity that comes with pressing play on an Amir Shervan film. You know you’re in for something that doesn’t quite play by cinematic rules, a fever dream stitched together from half-remembered ’80s action movies and wild ambition. Killing American Style is no exception. In fact, it might be Shervan’s most coherent film — though “coherent” is a relative term — and one of his most purely enjoyable.
The story is straightforward on paper: a dangerous gang escapes from prison, takes a family hostage, and soon the family’s patriarch must fight back to protect his home. Simple, classic stuff — the kind of B-movie setup that should practically write itself. But in Shervan’s hands, “simple” mutates into something uniquely bizarre. The plot moves in fits and starts, characters appear and vanish, and logic often goes on vacation. And yet, there’s a strange internal rhythm to it all, a kind of offbeat sincerity that makes the chaos feel almost… intentional.
At the center of it is Robert Z’Dar, whose enormous jawline and unstoppable energy dominate the screen. This might actually be his best performance in an Amir Shervan movie — yes, even better than Samurai Cop. Z’Dar wheezes, growls, and storms his way through every scene like a man halfway between a comic-book villain and a bouncer who’s taken the script way too seriously. He’s endlessly entertaining, and somehow his intensity gives the movie a pulse it desperately needs.
Harold Diamond, playing the heroic lead, feels like a rough draft of Samurai Cop’s Matt Hagen — all hair, confidence, and uneven fight choreography. He’s perfectly fine, but he lacks the unintentional charisma that made Shervan’s later leading men so memorable. Meanwhile, Jim Brown shows up as a detective who seems utterly uninterested in everything happening around him. His deadpan delivery — every line flattened like he’s ordering a burger — becomes oddly funny, especially when you remember he was only a few years away from appearing in Mars Attacks! You can’t help but want to shout, “Hang in there, Jim! It gets better!”
There’s a real argument to be made that Killing American Style is the better-made film compared to Samurai Cop. The camera lingers a bit longer, the story sort of connects its dots, and the editing occasionally makes sense. But maybe that’s part of the problem — with a touch more competence comes a touch less madness. Where Samurai Cop is a nonstop parade of insanity, this one sometimes pauses too long between punches, especially during a finale that overstays its welcome and drains some of the fun out of the chaos.
Still, there’s no shortage of unintentionally hilarious moments. The “you’re surrounded!” shout. The absurd “we’ve come to get you, Tony!” standoff. The awkward bath scene where a henchman sneaks up barefoot in cowboy boots. The head-scratching decision to apply pressure to a bullet wound while on a waterbed. And of course, the henchman who undresses at a glacial pace for no reason at all. Every five minutes seems to invite another “wait, what?” moment — and that’s exactly the charm.
Some elements haven’t aged well, to put it mildly. The portrayal of the minority doctor is written with the kind of clumsy ethnic humor that makes you wince. The film leans too hard into sleazy tropes that were all too common in the ’80s, and there’s a mean streak in a few scenes that feels at odds with the otherwise cartoonish tone. But even with its missteps, Killing American Style never feels cynical. It’s trying — earnestly, desperately — to deliver a tough, exciting action film. It just doesn’t quite know how.
Technically, the movie is a mess: repeated fight footage, mismatched lighting, sound that cuts in and out, and an editing rhythm that seems to have been decided by coin toss. But in its rough edges, there’s something weirdly endearing. Shervan’s style — his love of slow zooms, long pauses, and exaggerated masculinity — is unmistakable. This is a man who made movies because he had to, not because he could.
And for all its flaws, Killing American Style has that ineffable quality you can’t fake: personality. It’s both stupid and oddly solid. The pacing is off, the logic’s missing, but there’s life in every frame. The dads who can’t stop fighting, the bizarre Fresno reference, the little kid almost stealing a gun — it’s an unfiltered vision of action cinema through Shervan’s wonderfully cracked lens.
So yes, you can laugh at it. You probably will. But you might also find yourself genuinely entertained. It’s a film that exists somewhere between Double Dragon and The Room, where passion outweighs talent and sincerity masks incompetence. And in that sense, it’s quintessential Amir Shervan cinema.
Verdict: Killing American Style is clumsy, offensive, ridiculous, and frequently hilarious — but it’s also kind of great. A must-see for fans of cult cinema and those who appreciate movies that fail loudly and joyfully.
Jessie Hobson