While visiting his former partner in an Arizona border town, LA cop Jack Lucarelli witnesses a murder. The killer is white slaver
Gerald McRaney-who turns out to be one of local sheriff
Wilford Brimley's most trusted deputies. Nobody believes Lucarelli's eyewitness account, not even his ex-partner
Jameson Parker, another of Brimley's deputies. Eventually, it dawns on Parker that his department is seething with corruption. He and Lucarelli work secretly to put an end to McRaney's activities, leading inexorably to the film's climactic bloodbath. The otherwise eminently forgettable American Justice is interesting for its reteaming of onetime
Simon and Simon costars
Jameson Parker and
Gerald McRaney, this time on opposite sides of the law. Parker coproduced the film with costar Lucarelli, while one of the film's supporting actors, Dennis A. Pratt, wrote the script . ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide