Jamaican cinema's been angling for a major crossover hit since 1972's classic reggae movie The Harder They Come. Third World Cop's recipe for box office success involves giving the clichés of the cops 'n' robbers genre a Jamaican flavour, but misfires by cribbing too much from black American cinema.
Loose cannon cop Capone (Campbell) returns home to Kingston to find child-hood buddy Ratty (Danvers) embroiled in gun-running. As Capone and Ratty find themselves reluctant enemies, the tone wavers wildly between ghetto grit and action comedy. It whips by at a fair old pace, thanks to the energetic soundtrack, and some good jokes (if you can decipher the patois), but amateurishness ultimately sinks its ambition.
Third World Cop wants to be New Jack City and Beverly Hills Cop, with pinches of Shaft and Pulp Fiction. It's an intermittently entertaining try, but a failure nonetheless.
