Obsolete Sheet: K-9000 (1991)

K-9000 (TV 1991)

Director: Kim Manners
Writers: Michael Part, Steven E. de Souza
Starring: Chris Mulkey, Catherine Oxenberg, Dennis Haysbert, and Jerry Houser (as the voice of ‘Niner’)

A policeman and a female scientist team up to recover her latest creation, a cybernetic, crime-fighting dog.

The cop-dog buddy movie (Turner and Hooch, K-9, this dreck) is a much-maligned, underappreciated? genre of filmmaking magic that seems not to have made it into the new millennium. Perhaps there is a lost innocence in our willingness to believe our stars (Hanks, Belushi etc.) and their quadrupedal best friends solving urban crimes in the era of suicide planes and biological warfare. But who better to sniff out dirty bombs than man’s best friend? Maybe we just need a gritty Bourne Identity-style techno-update. In the best cop-dog film, these canine pals become closer than a human partner, true confidantes that will take a bullet for ya and still hump your leg.

And then there’s this movie (speaking of dirty bombs, look out, ahem!). I didn’t have the good fortune to tune in from the very beginning. But when I did, I couldn’t look away. Mulkey (the abusive trucker husband of Shelley the waitress on Twin Peaks) plays a mulleted crude boozer LA cop in the Gibson/Russell vein (minus 75% personality) who is forced to partner with glamorous Euro cyber-scientist (Oxenberg) to get to the baddy weapons-smugglers that left his black human partner (Haysbert) in a coma.

When I tuned in, they were infiltrating a top-secret lab bunker in which the “K-9000” project sat in a mysterious box. Oxenberg explains it’s a special technology that involves microchip communication between specially-rigged ‘cyber-dogs’ and computer dispatchers. Only problem? During a shoot-out in the lab, the cyber-dog (German Shepherd) bursts out of his saran-wrap prematurely, and the cyberchip receiver somehow winds up in the loser cop’s head. (sorry-didn’t catch how).

So anyhoo, the cop wakes up holding a bottle of Jack in his beach cabana, with the dog staring at him inquisitively. He starts hearing voices – specifically a nebbishy Jewish voice-over asking him how he is feeling and if he would like help with his investigation. Holy shit! The dog is still talking to him, and his fucking mouth doesn’t move. (cyber-telepathy, natch) After the requisite throwing the bottle down and trying to sleep it off, the dog keeps hassling him (and won’t fetch balls, since it’s ‘canine’ brain area was removed for the chip.) Taking it in stride, it’s now a Knight Rider deal and the cop reluctantly grows to rely on the dog’s techno-skills (like clearing an outside line on a payphone.)

It all winds up on Catalina Island (the fucking wine mixer!) where they track the baddy smugglers to the top of a tower and K-9000 pushes that Euro son-of-a-bitch right off to save Mulkey, dangling from the edge. Partner comes out of coma, Mulkey and Oxenberg recline on the beach, and K-9000 (in sunglasses) remembers how to fetch balls- and suck them. This film might have killed the cop-dog movie for good after all. Only time will tell?

For a flashier version (w/clips, posters & ads!) please see The Obsolete Sheet.

At The Newsstand

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