CYBORG COP (1993)

April 24, 2026

CYBORG COP (1993)

DIRECTED by Sam Firstenberg

SCREENPLAY by Greg Latter

STARRING - David Bradley as DEA Agent Jack Ryan

Todd Jensen as Phillip Ryan

John Rhys-Davies as Professor Joachim Kessel

Alona Shaw as Cathy

Ron Smerzack as Callan

Rufus Swart as Cyborg

Anthony Fridjon as Hogan

Shalom Kenan as Steve

Robert Whitehead as Dr. Stechman

Steven Leader as Frankie

Robert Reynolds as Johnson

Ernest Ndlovu as Sergeant

PLOT - Ex DEA Agent Jack Ryan comes out of self imposed retirement to investigate the disappearance of his brother Philip, who was last seen conducting a Black Ops raid on a suspected drug factory in Jamaica.

Accompanied on his search by female reporter Cathy, Jack finds that his brother has been transformed into a killer cyborg by evil scientist Professor Kessell.

Can Jack save his brother's humanity and stop the diabolical plans of Kessler ?...

PERFORMANCES - Ohhhh God...CYBORG COP!!!!!!

If ever a film had the words "B-movie rip off" drilled into it's very soul, its this. Although judging by the title you'd think it was riffing on RoboCop, when in reality it's much closer to a Terminator knock off than anything else.

The film's hero is Jack Ryan played by David Bradley, and you couldn't get a more typical 80's action hero (even though this was made in 1993) if you tried.

We can tell he's the hero because he has a shady past (he fell out with his DEA superiors), he's on a personal vendetta (finding his missing brother), he's a Ninja level martial artist, he can ride motorbikes whilst shooting a gun and he's always dressed in a black leather jacket and shades. He's the type of man who can stand in a seedy bar and look completely unperturbed as a random hooker he didn't ask for shoves her hands down the front of his 501's (see above photo). In short he's as cheesy as hell and as a result he's a huge amount of fun to watch in action.

You can tell that Bradley is completely playing up to the stereotype but he does manage to inject a bit of much needed humanity into the character at points, particularly with the excellent chemistry he has with Alona Shaw who plays reporter Cathy.

Shaw, for her part is also pretty decent as the (at first) grumpy and confrontational Cathy. When we first meet her, her hobbies seem to consist of yelling at Jack and rudely ignoring Rastafarians, all the time wanting to get that much vaunted "story of a lifetime", (are all journalists REALLY that interested in getting a "big story" ?, because all the ones I've ever met seem more concerned about whether or not they can claim thier lunchtime pint on expenses or not). Of course, you just KNOW within two seconds of them meeting each other and being immediately at loggerheads that a few scenes later they'll be at it like rabbits...and they DON'T disappoint, but more on that later...

Then we get what is probably the highlight of the movie - John Rhys-Davies as cyborg creating mad scientist - Professor Kessell.

Rhys-Davies goes all out balls to the wall high camp in this role. You can tell that he knows he's not appearing in high art by being in this film and has decided to have as much fun as possible.

From the moment we first see him giggling like an utter loon as he operates a remote controlled toy plane which takes out a couple of black-ops guys (a remote controlled plane which makes ACTUAL full size plane noises by the way) we just know that we're in for a treat.

For the rest of the film every time Rhys-Davies is on-screen you find that you can't take your eyes off him - you just don't know what he's going to do next. Whether it's sending an innocent stooge to get his face literally punched in by a cyborg, delivering every line in a broad Yorkshire accent (I just love the notion of a "super villain" having an " e'by'gum" way of speaking) or seemingly flirting with his evil henchman (are they having a gay relationship ? It's definitely coded that way) - whatever he does, Rhys-Davies as Kessler is enormous fun to watch.

Oh and a quick shout out has to go to Rufus Stewart as the prototype cyborg - a pound shop Schwarzenegger in Terminator if ever I saw one - he moves like Arnie but always seems to have this permanently confused looking expression on his face - great fun.

SFX - Basic Terminator style makeup effects (this is one film that wears it's influences proudly on it's sleeve), some halfway decent bits of gore and EXPLOSIONS GALORE !!!!!!!

Cars blow up.

Buildings blow up.

Everything not nailed down seems liable to go BOOM at any given moment (usually in slow motion just to milk the shot even further). I'm guessing probably about 70 percent of this film's budget probably went on pyrotechnics alone. It's like an episode of the A-Team.

SEX & VIOLENCE - One of the many funny things about this film is it's depiction of both sex and violence.

Starting with the sex - at roughly the mid point of the film Jack and Cathy let that long pent up sexual tension that's been building for the entire movie finally burst. We get the typical soft focus 80's style love scene - the slow sensual music, the warm lighting that picks out our loving couple's romantically co-joined bodies. This goes on for a few moments...and then suddenly...JACK PROCEEDS TO MOTORBOAT CATHY'S TITS - he's not even subtle about it - he just shoves his face between them and flubbles them about with his mouth. It's like he got momentarily confused and thought he was acting in a hardcore XXX porno.

Speaking of tits - we then get a scene where we see a Jamaican drugs factory. A drugs factory that is staffed entirely with topless women. WHY????? They're cooking Chrystal Meth not auditioning for a career on Babestation !!!!!! It's ridiculous and it's as funny as hell.

Then we get the violence which is once again extremely OTT. Bad guys get shot (in slow motion) , vehicles, buildings and even more bad guys get blown up (in slow motion), Jack rides a motorbike and guns people down whilst popping the odd wheelie (once more in - you guessed it - slow motion). It lingers on every single act of destruction in an almost loving way.

We also get some decent gore effects - including the aforementioned face being punched in and the moment where Jack's brother gets his hand chopped off by Poundland Arnie's Freddie Krueger hand...