Kevin White, a DEA agent working in San Francisco, gets the break he needs when he convinces the cousin of a fearsome Russian ex-KGB gangster to become an informant in order to bring down the gangster's new drug empire. Returning home to Los Angeles, Kevin stays over at the home of his brother Jack, who is also a police officer but a patrol cop only. During dinner, Kevin tells Jack about his plan to bust the Russians. But what Kevin doesn't know is that Jack is actually corrupt & has decided to use his brother's information in order to net him an easy payday. Discovering the informant's identity, Jack visits the gangster & kills the informant. He also offers his services for the fee of a million dollars. As Jack's skillful sabotage ruins the DEA case against the gangster, Kevin begins to suspect that the target has some sort of insider in the police department. And when he discovers that his own brother is involved, his blood boils over.Martial Outlaw is one of a number of cheap B-grade action films made by Canadian producer Pierre David, who is famous for making the Scanners sequels, & stars the likes of Jeff Wincott, a martial artist turned actor who has made a minor living starring in films like this one (he also starred in the likes of UNIVERSAL SOLDIER II: BROTHERS IN ARMS & its sequel as a UniSol).Martial Outlaw is by all respects an unexceptional action thriller. It has plenty of melee combat & some pretty gnarly fight scenes (Wincott & Hudson take on plenty of Russian gangsters in a restaurant & an athletics club where you discover what a "Russian circle" is). The script is efficient enough to keep the story going along without encountering any plot holes & the twists are telegraphed well in advance.But while the film is reasonable enough to pass as an action film, it doesn't have any real substance to it. Kurt Anderson keeps the action going to make up for the narrative shortfall & the script, written by at least five people, shows signs of being overproduced (I had a problem with the scene where Hudson's corrupt cop brings in a witness to tell the others about the fake drug deal location – wouldn't the police have instantly discovered that the witness was in fact an actress paid by Hudson to give them the wrong information?). The result is an action B-grader that doesn't make much of an effort to elevate itself above the flood of cheap actioners made during the 1990s.

Kevin White (Wincott) is a DEA agent who travels from Washington DC to California, hot on the trail of evil Russians that are ex-KGB agents who are now drug runners. While there, he ends up teaming up with his brother Jack White (Hudson, not the ghoul-like guitar player/singer from the White Stripes). Thankfully for us, both brothers are "karate cops" who can put baddies in their place with their feet and fists. Jack is more of a bull in a china shop (almost literally, going by his introduction in the film). Unfortunately, Jack is also dirty, and he's double dealing - helping the baddies and his brother. All this causes their father, known only to us as Mr. White (Jaeckel) to crawl into a bottle of generic whisky. Will these blood brothers spill blood while proving that blood is thicker than water? Find out today! Martial Outlaw (you gotta love that title) makes a great companion piece with Mission of Justice (1992). Both are done by the same people, they have a similar look and feel, and both, of course, star Jeff Wincott. They even have a similar strategy for their placement of fight scenes - in Mission, the big blowout fight was in the garage, and here it's in the restaurant. They both have a scene in a gym where Wincott beats up a lot of people. We would certainly recommend the two for a double bill of VHS action brilliance.Outlaw reinforces our love for Wincott - he has a power-packed fighting style which is infectious for the audience, and he can do it while wearing a turtleneck and sportcoat. It's all complemented by his cool 90's hair, and his stylish sweaters he wears to the gun range are the icing on the cake. His line of casual gun-range wear would singe the retinas of Bill Cosby. But what else would you expect one to wear when in a state of deep concentration? But he's also likable, which is more important than a thousand sweaters (which are the exact words we're all taught in school).Funnily enough, Wincott, or should we say Kevin White, can always find a way to have two Arnis fighting sticks in any situation, no matter how dangerous. Two legs will break off a chair and fall into his hands, or bigger sticks will break in two. You can almost set your watch by the regularity with which Kevin White pummels opponents with two hand-held sticks.Physically, Gary Hudson and Wincott are perfectly cast as brothers, and their psychological tension as siblings is believable and even compelling. And Richard Jaeckel was a nice choice as dad. The baddie even has a goon which closely resembles Martin Kove. Adding further interest are the fax machines, pagers, and classic computers which are all hallmarks of a certain place and time we just can't seem to get enough of seeing on screen.Martial Outlaw delivers what fans of 90's DTV action want, and it is indeed a satisfying experience. We recommend it.

Jeff Wincott (from 80's TV-series Night Heat) had potential to become the next Van Damme or Seagal. But he only made a couple of really good movies, after "Mission Of Justice" he returned with the same production crew for "Martial Outlaw". The story is, considering it's a martial arts movie, really good with an interesting premises: Kevin (Jeff Wincott) and Jack White (Gary Hudson) are brothers and both cops in different cities. A drug case brings them together, but Jack crosses the line and Kevin is the one who has to stop him. The acting is good, besides the action there is some good drama between Jack, his wife and his father. Kevin is mixed up in all this. The fighting scenes are excellent, Wincott is in top form: The scene is the restaurant is filled with action and great fights and the "Russian Circle" scene is already a classic. It reminds you of great martial arts films like "Kiss of The Dragon" and "Lionheart".The rest of the cast is also good, look out for Stefanos Miltsakakis as cool bad-ass Sergei. He was also in other genre movies like "Cyborg" and "Maximum Risk" (as Red Face).I already saw "Martial Outlaw" a dozen of times and it's still highly entertaining. After this, Wincott made 2 other excellent movies "Open Fire" and "Last Man Standing" (not the Bruce Willis movie). After that, his other movies were not that impressing. To bad because he certainly has charisma like Van Damme in the 80's en 90's. If you love movies like this and you've never seen this one, try to find it, it's certainly worth it.

This is a video classic. No matter which video store I go into, I can usually find it. The action is non-stop and the stunts are pretty good. Not much in the acting or dramatic department but who cares when the action is this hot. Jeff Wincott (from the Miami Vice knockoff "Night Heat")plays an FBI agent trying to track down a Russian drug kingpin while trying to deal with his ailing ex-cop father and crooked LA cop brother. Wincott's made a name for himself doing these straight-to-video martial arts flicks like Cynthia Rothrock and Don "the Dragon" Wilson. This is his best. Some of the others are "The Last Man Standing" (not the Bruce Willis film) and "Open Fire".