“Night Vision” is a mediocre cop film. It was made in 1997 but it’s so cheap that it looks like it was a tv movie from the 80s. The film itself is not actually that bad with a few interesting ideas here and there. It reminded me a little of “Sliver” as well as the “Dirty Harry” movies.

Dakota Smith (Fred Williamson “The Black Bounty Killer”, “From Dusk Till Dawn”) is an alcoholic cop with a bad attitude. He gets partnered with Kristin O’Connor (Cynthia Rothrock “China O’Brien”, “Righting Wrongs”) as they pursue a serial killer. The killer makes videos of his victims and distribute them on the snuff film network.

Fred Williamson is forgettable as Dakota Smith. It just seems like he’s trying to emulate Richard Roundtree in “Shaft” and the stars of other 70s blaxploitation films. You’ll have to keep reminding yourself that you’re not watching Richard Roundtree. Cynthia Rothrock is primarily a martial artist. However, she gets very few opportunities to show off her moves here. That’s a shame because we know that she can fight from her other movies. We see a lot of the victims of the killer engaging in sexual activities as he videotapes them before he then abducts them. We also see that the killer enjoys wrapping them in plastic so that they can’t breathe.

“Night Vision” is clearly a film for people that are big fans of “Shaft”, “Dirty Harry”, “Tightrope”, “Cobra”, “Maniac Cop” and a ton of other cop films. The problem is that nothing done here has not been done better elsewhere. If you’ve seen some of Cynthia Rothrock’s other American films such as “Sworn To Justice”, you’ll know what the production value will be like. Don’t go into expecting much and you might just get some mild enjoyment from it. However, I think most people are going to find this to be quite underwhelming.