"I'm a cop. You're a drug trafficker. I didn't betray you; I busted you."

First-rate entertainment, and with some profound social commentary (which will be further inspected upon a necessary rewatch) underneath it all. Full proof that meat-and-potato crime/thriller outings aren't synonymous with Z-grade filmic idiocy punctuated by killer one-liners. (Although Captain Zhang's quote [see above] is pretty sick!) Taking the simple premise of a drug lord evading execution by assisting a police unit in taking down fellow drug barons,…

Quirky oddity elevated by some terrific location shooting. Allen Baron's non-actorly demeanor works well enough, so long as he’s not required to exhibit any sense of emotion/feeling. (The “Laurie” subplot constitutes the script's worst tendencies; it's not that a self-pitying need for connection doesn't inherently work in such a scenario as much as it messes with the consistency which propels the movie forward.) Nevertheless, Blast of Silence is a thoroughly gripping bruise of a movie. Smacks of the plot threads…