Narcotics cop Tom Sharky gets kicked down to Vice when a drug bust he’s on goes bad and a civilian gets shot. But things get exciting quickly when a hooker reveals that a candidate for governor is a tool for the head gangster. Sharky and his men get a list of prostitutes and ask for phone taps, but are refused for one of them, Dominoe. Sharky stakes out her apartment and gets to know her. One day the candidate shows up and reveals that he’s bought Dominoe a house. Then Victor, the gangster, arrives. Dominoe tells him she wants out. The next day Victor’s brother, a hit man shows up and kills her. Sharky is in Dominoe’s apartment when she arrives the next day — it wasn’t her that was killed, but her roommate. He spirits her off to his house in the suburbs and the two become close.

When Sharky goes to see one of his men, he is attacked and taken to a houseboat where a crooked cop who works for Victor cuts off two of his fingers trying to get Sharky to tell where Dominoe is. But Sharky overpowers the cop and his henchmen. With Dominoe’s help, they arrest the now governor-elect and go for Victor. But his brother has already killed him. Sharky and his men chase the brother around a skyscraper and, after two of them are shot, Sharky kills him. He and Dominoe go to Sharky’s house.

I’ve seen this movie several times and like it, although it’s very violent and the scene where Sharky gets his fingers cut off is hard to take. But Rachel Ward is stunning and the characters of Sharky and his men are all good.