Against the Law (1997 film)

Against the Law is a 1997 American action crime directed by Jim Wynorski and starring Nick Mancuso, Nancy Allen and Richard Grieco.

Plot

In California, a homeless and mentally ill man, Rex, comes to believe he is a gunfighter from the American Old West, and heads for Los Angeles. While travelling, he begins a murder spree, and his victims include police officers. He becomes fixated on Los Angeles police officer John Shepard, who is in the news after killing a drug dealer in a shootout, and news anchor Maggie Hewitt, who broke the story. He terrorizes Hewitt before arriving in Los Angeles, where he challenges Shepard to a Western-style showdown at high noon.

The film was written by Steve Mitchell with Bob Sheridan. Mitchell hoped to direct and wrote it with John Terlesky in mind for the lead. Jim Wynorski bought the script for Sunset Films, a company he was operating with Andrew Stevens for Cinetel Films. Mitchell said he thought the film "ultimately turned out to be one of Jim’s best movies, but there are a lot of things I’m not happy with. The casting was a lot of it."