Relentless

Relentless is a crime thriller about a serial killer stalking Los Angeles, choosing victims from the telephone directory and leaving pages of the book behind as a signature. The case falls to Sam Dietz, a new detective on the force whose methods clash with those of his older, more cynical partner, Bill Malloy. As the body count grows, the two men work a case that pits them against a killer with police training and a method behind his apparently random choices.

The film was directed by William Lustig, who had made Maniac, Vigilante and Maniac Cop before it, and would go on to make Maniac Cop 2 and later titles. Phil Alden Robinson wrote the screenplay. Judd Nelson plays the killer, Buck Taylor, with Robert Loggia as Malloy and Leo Rossi as Dietz; Meg Foster, Patrick O'Bryan and Ken Lerner appear among a credited cast of thirty-nine.

Released in August 1989, the film ran 92 minutes and took in about 7 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 5.9 from around 2,100 votes, while on TMDB its rating is 5.3 from a much smaller number of votes. Both figures place it as a modestly received genre entry rather than a breakout.