Winner's Cut — Preston Pairo

Repetitious, repellent sex scenes and unvarying scatological expressions pale in comparison with Pairo's offenses against the English language in this dreary thriller. The large cast features cops and crooks in Florida's Dade County, with narcotics detective Eddie Gant playing lead tough guy. Overmatched by vicious killer Juavier Mendez, Gant seems bound to lose the contest between them until the final clash. Posing as wealthy Aurelio Santiago, the drug courier kidnaps Amy Lansing after murdering her lover. Mendez demands secret government plans from Amy's father, an engineer, as her ransom, and Lansing agrees to a rendezvous. The payoff by a foreign agent means a fortune and rise in status for the lowly dope deliverer, but Gant is on his trail. Mendez seduces and slays a series of women, episodes as detailed as the actions that leave his male antagonists robbed and dead. It's hard to care about anybody concerned on either side of the law here, alternately described as ``well-knowledged,'' or as people who ``spectated'' and very often ``hollared'' during hyped-up actions. Major ad/promo. (November 11)