I've been watching Armand Assante since he was one of the Mike Powers on The Doctors some 37 years ago, and in all that time, I've never once thought of him as Mike Hammer. I still don't.In I, the Jury, Hammer goes to work on a different kind of case as he tries to find the killer of Jack Williams, a man who served with him in Vietnam and, while retrieving Mike's helmet, lost his arm. Jack was investigating something when he was killed, but what? After consulting Jack's widow, Mike finds out they went to sex therapy at a clinic, so he starts there. The head of the clinic, the beautiful Dr. Bennett (Barbara Carrera) freezes him out of her office. Mike ultimately realizes that Jack was there working undercover and found out something that resulted in him being murdered. This winds up involving Mike with the CIA, a mental patient, bad cops, and a rogue Army officer.Lots of violence and nudity and in the end for me anyway, not worth it. Assante does as good a job as he can, but he's no Mike Hammer. For one thing, he is too exotic-looking, for another, he's not hard-boiled. He's too smooth and his Mike is juxtaposed against the backdrop of some of the seedier parts of New York City in 1982, before Disney moved into Times Square. I did absolutely love seeing the New York where I lived - the Times Square smut, Colony Records, the Broadway/7th Aveue area, great fun.Not really my type of thing. It may be if you like violence and nude women, this is for you.

As of this writing, I have not seen the original version of I, The Jury for which this movie is a remake. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen Mike Hammer-based movies before. But holy cow, this movie was just absolute crap.Mike Hammer's friend, Jack, a one-armed man, is murdered. Investigator Hammer, an unorthodox cop (so unorthodox that he freely contaminates crime scenes), is on the obvious mission to uncover the culprit. As Mike Hammer, Armande Assante, hardly seemed even bemused by the government/military corruption behind the murder. Nor the links to the mafia. Not even as it involved the sex clinic doctor. Neither was I given, the ridiculously mounting body count--both in terms of murders and the sex scenes until reaching an even more ridiculous ending.I wouldn't recommend this movie to people interested in a good murder mystery. Although, I don't know how Mike Hammer fans would react to this movie, or whether they'd want to watch more Mike Hammer in action.

The scene where Armand Assante shoves the bad guy's face onto the hot griddle ranks right up with the dentist "Is it safe?" scene in Marathon Man. It is unique, and it makes you cringe any time you think of this movie.The mark of a true "tough" guy is that he will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Armand Assante's Mike Hammer is one of the best portrayals in that regard.

This actually a combination of two Spillane books "I the Jury" and "The Body Lovers" This is not a great film, but good. The action and plot are pretty good and Assante gives a decent performance, but the thing that I remember the most is just how damn sexy Barbara Carrera is in this movie. I watched this movie with my mom on cinemax one night when I was in junior high school and I had to sit with a pillow on my lap. She blows away Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. She's very tempting at the end when she confronts Mike Hammer and he's got to make a life and death decision. This movie belongs to her. She has been good in other movies, but this is her best performance. It's worth watching for any fan of Barbara Carrera and sleazy action movies