Scar City is the inspirational story of New York City's first fully functional retarded police officer, John Trace (Stephen Baldwin), who is recruited to work in the special S.C.A.R. unit run by Lieutenant Laine Devon (Chaz Palmenteri). Trace goes through the usual rookie hazing, but has a harder time with it than most, because of his inability to understand what is happening. Tia Carerre plays a titty bar vixen who spends half the movie uninvolved with the plot but finds her way in at Trace's first raid with his new unit. From there on the helpless Carerre relies on Trace to keep her safe from the baddies. There are some amazing moments where the retarded Trace walks on top of cars instead of going around them and shoots his pistol over and around his head. The line, "Don't think once," sums up the movie pretty well. I won't spoil it for you but Trace's journey through the crooked NYPD as the first fully functional retarded officer is as hard to watch as it is inspirational. I'm not sure if this was inspired by a true story or not, but if it was I'm sure that whoever the trailblazer was who is the real John Trace would be thrilled with the accurate portrayal of the mentally retarded by Stephen Baldwin.

Under investigation for his third shooting that month, Officer John Trace is on the streets when he interrupts a drug deal but ends up shooting dead an unarmed perp. Looking at jail time at worst he takes an offer from Lieutenant Laine Devon to join an elite unit in return for Devon covering for Trace on this shooting. When he joins the unit he finds that SCAR are more assassins than cops – mercilessly killing perps with City Hall happen to turn a blind eye. When Trace lets a prostitute live during a gun battle it sets him on the run from the SCAR unit with Candy in tow.I had seen this film before but noticed I hadn't reviewed it so I decided to watch it again as I remembered it was OK. I was right – it is just OK, nothing more nothing less. There are no surprises in the plot – it's not a spoiler to say that Trace ends up going against his heavily armed unit. The action is also average, lots of gunfire and big bangs don't really cover the lack of tension but they do an average job at keeping the pace of the film up.The gentle humour comes from bits of the film having it's tongue in it's cheek and it let me know that I wasn't meant to be taking any of this too seriously. All the usual `banter while getting shot at' stuff was there to keep it far from reality – none of it was very good but, again, it was passable.The cast looks great on paper but fail to really do anything other than run of the mill performances in this thriller. Baldwin is OK but doesn't distinguish himself. Palminteri is slumming it a bit here but he enjoys a slightly hammy bad guy role which is really almost a long cameo. Carrere is sexy despite her best efforts and she gets the `sassy broad' lines, I liked her character. The actual unit has a few well known faces but nobody stands out.The holes in the plot should tell you that you're not watching a film of high quality or aims (how DID they find Candy's house?) but if you're watching this on a low rent cable channel or as a bottom shelf video rental then you should be happy with the mindless guff that gets served up with bangs and booms. A reasonable video thriller that falls well short of being good but will stand out when viewed alongside many later night cable movies!

I have to say I did enjoy the film I liked the story of a team of cops who have no regard of the law they kill whoever they like. For me it was very enjoyable but as the person from another post says that some parts of the film seem to be rushed and I do feel that. I think the ending could have been a lot better and it didnt really tie up the characters very well. I would recommend this to anyone who has a free night on their hands to watch it you will enjoy it I did very much.

I had the chance to watch this for free and I've got to say it was worth every penny. Seriously, it was not nearly as bad as it could have been. It's a decent if never surprising "action" movie with a bit of cleavage and lingerie thrown in. I felt that a lot of parts seemed thrown together and rushed, but I've seen a whole lot worse.