At this stage in his career, Sylvester Stallone was not known as an action star, and in some ways this was his first real stab at the genre with which he is now most closely associated. And it certainly is a belter. Stallone and Billy Dee Williams play two New York cops who are sent scampering all over the Big Apple on the trail of a vicious international terrorist (Rutger Hauer, making an electrifying Hollywood debut). The able supporting cast includes Lindsay Wagner and British actor Nigel Davenport, and director Bruce Malmuth keeps the action zipping along at a pleasing pace.

When one of Europe's most lethal terrorists shows up in New York, an elite undercover cop is assigned to take him down by any means necessary.