Max Dire (Mario Van Peebles) and his partner, Jim Sheldon (Tony Denison), are cops in the New York City police department. During a hostage situation Jim is shot and ends up barely alive in the ICU. During the night someone enters his room and injects him with a serum. Jim makes an astounding recovery and returns immediately to work. The partners then find themselves in the middle of a drive-by attack. Jim leaps over cars and trucks chasing the shooters. He ends up jumping onto a motorcycle being driven by one of the shooters. He forces the driver to head straight for a brick wall. The motorcycle explodes in a fiery crash. Jim walks away unaffected. Later Jim finds Max at the local pool hall. He tells Max that he’s done. He then eats his gun. Max is stunned.
Back at work, Max is assigned to a special task force run by Adam Garou (Bruce Payne). He tells Max that there are several cops going through similar experiences. The group meets a couple times a week. Max thinks that it the meetings are therapy sessions. Curiosity gets to him so he shows up at their next meeting. In attendance are four other police officers, Casey Spencer (Patsy Kensit), Doug Crane (Jason Beghe) Ramon Perez (John Verea) and Liza (Paula Marshall). It turns out that the group is a sort of vigilante force that goes out at night to stop crime. The difference between them and normal cops is that they have greater strength, energy and become impervious to injury.
Max learns that the reason for their power is that have injected themselves with a drug provided by Adam that gives them their extraordinary endurance. He also learns that Jim had been injected with the drug while he was dying in the hospital. That’s why he regained his health so quickly. Max ends up taking the drug and participating in the nighttime adventures.
Eventually Max learns of a strange man who says he was one of Adam’s vigilantes in another state. He tells Max that once crime has been eliminated from a city, the vigilantes are killed and Adam moves on to another precinct in another state to start all over again. He also finds out that the drug affects people to the point where they become deformed. Max now realizes that Adam is not exactly who he says he is and his powers mask something more evil and primal. Adam is a werewolf.
“Full Eclipse” was released in 1993 and was directed by Anthony Hickox. It is an American science fiction horror thriller. The film was created for television by HBO.
It is quite a dark and foreboding film, almost dystopian. The movie got a lot of crap from some reviewers. I actually enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty good, but a little wild. There were some pacing issues, but for the most part it was action filled. I think the movie suffered from budget constraints more than anything else. I also liked where Adam got the serum that he is injecting into his disciples. It was an interesting little take on the legend.
The best character in the film was Adam Garou. Bruce Payne plays the combination bad guy with good intentions character Adam Garou. His intensity and sociopathic tendencies give his character an intimidating aura. Garou is an old French word meaning wolf or werewolf, therefore, Adam’s name, A. Garou, means a werewolf.