The Expert
The Expert is a 1995 B rated (or C... or D... or F) movie starring Jeff Speakman, very forgetable other than that it's So Bad It's Good. Within the movie, the justice system lets killers get away, prison guards are ruthless, and the police is held down by the laws. One cop, over the fear of his latest catch being sent to a minimal security prison and possibly getting out sooner than life, decides to break into a prison and kill the convicted man. Of course, the villain is not staying put and has a plan to escape from the jail.
Tropes used in The Expert include:
- A Fool for a Client: the Big Bad is actually certain he'll eventually find a sympathetic judge or jury to send him in a less secure environment or let him go as being insane. He doesn't wait long for it to happen, though.
- Buddy Cop Show, the stereotype.
- Crapsack World
- Frame-Up: the prisoner next to the Big Bad seems to recognize his cellmate as the one who killed his wife and let him be convicted for it. This has absolutely no effect on the rest of the movie other than to show how evil the villain is. Taken to even worse levels when you realize that with the Big Bad's death, this guy has no (or at least a lot fewer) way to prove his innocence anymore. Way to go, hero!
- Great Escape
- Some Guns and Gunplay Tropes
- Idiot Plot.
- Insanity Defense: tried, doesn't work.
- Karma Houdini: after breaking into a prison in a ninja outfit to kill a prisoner, the main character is not asked what he was doing there, how he entered said prison, or how he arrived before most of the police, and he is only congratulated for doing a good job.
- No Escape but Down: rooftop climax.
- One-Man Army: the protagonist.
- Prison Rape: just one of the sick jokes implied by the not-too-sympathetic-guards
- Revenge Tropes: being a movie set around revenge, more than one fits:
- He Who Fights Monsters
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
- It's Personal: the inmate next to the Big Bad
- Revenge Before Reason: the whole point, not exploited at all.
- The Shrink: well-meaning, but ineffective type. Dopey in the sense that she believes her client. Tries to get the Big Bad out of what she sincerely believes is a Split Personality disorder. After seeing him commit atrocities however, she's turned into a Strawman Political who sees the error of her ways and wants him fried.
- Split Personality: invoked to get out of prison, not real, just part of the Insanity Defense.
- Strawman Political: all but the main character (and maybe his partner).
- Token Minority: The Shrink, both woman and black, indirectly the antagonist through most of the movie. She also tends to get away with some Whitey verbal pwning. In a lesser manner, the main character's partner.
- What the Hell, Hero?: called on it, the... hero still knocks his partner out and goes for revenge.