Hawk Jones (1986)

Bugsy Malone is one of the strangest movies you’ll find, Sir Alan Parker’s gangster musical that stars Scott Baio, Jodie Foster and an all-child cast. Hawk Jones does that and goes beyond, with an all-child cast from Moline, Illinois shot on video and instead imitating the days of Dillinger and Capone, they’re making a direct to video cop movie complete with doomed women and machine gun aided revenge.

Director Richard Lowry kept on making movies after this, like President Evil, Alien Overlords and Rapture. He was inspired by seeing a Jello Pudding Pop commercial where all the kids were acting like adults. It was written by his brother Tor Reyel.

Hawk Jones (Valiant Duhart) is a cop who all the other cops make fun of for being such a maniac. He’ll also flip out if you make fun of his mother. His partner is in love with him, but he’s dating Lola, the gangster’s moll who is fated for a bad ending, and he’s been battling a crime boss named Antonio Coppola for years, a man — well, a child — who has hired a punk rock larger kid named The Destroyer to take out Hawk.

Kids in bars. Kids singing in Vegas-style numbers. Kids battling with guns in scenes that feel like a sub-Cannon 80s action movie except, again, with children and sound effects written on the screen like Batman. And best of all, a sword fight ending that’s better than almost any movie you’ll see this year.

Johnny LaRue couldn’t get his crane shot but somehow, this movie could.