Necessary Evil is thoroughly disappointing cinematic mess.

If this film were a supermarket, someone would be on the loudspeaker calling for cleanup on every freakin' aisle. The only thing necessary for this utter mess of a movie is a complete re-write and re-casting.

Don't count on Lance Henriksen to save the day here; having recently accumulated a string of bad-movie notches in his acting belt, Henriksen is no longer capable of carrying a weak film solely on his own shoulders. Indeed, with parts like this one, I believe Henriksen is becoming a caricature of his former self, and that poses quite a problem for a plot-challenged movie filled with bad actors.

It's obvious from the start that Necessary Evil doesn't have a lot going for it. For one thing, the movie opens with an extended narrative voiceover (which is pretty much a cinematic neon sign flashing the words "Bad movie ahead"). Then, before we even get to the opening credits (which appear to have been made using an old Commodore 64), we see that a band of mercenaries making their way to a mysterious and dangerous artifact have brought a stripper along with them. I'm sorry -- what? Was the writer of this garbage on drugs?

I won't reveal what this archaeological discovery consists of, but it forms an integral part of one mad scientist's plan to achieve immortality. Dr. Neal Fibrian (Henriksen) runs a huge psychiatric hospital by day, but all he really cares about is getting his drug Reficul (which he has tested extensively on his patients) on the market. Working in cahoots with a large pharmaceutical company, he's finally managed to get the drug approved by the corrupt FDA. (What does the marketing of this drug have to do with his own immortality, you ask? If the writer knows, he sure isn't telling.) Anyway, only two things stand in the way of this stupid master plan: a nosy detective still looking for a girl who disappeared over a decade earlier and a journalism student determined to blow the lid off of whatever is happening at Dr. Fibrian's hospital.

Given the unprecedented power of the bad guys, you have to wonder why they didn't just do away with Detective Russo (Eric Feldman) at some point over the 14 years he's been nosing around. After all, Russo is a pretty good detective, quite capable of making huge illogical leaps over giant plot holes in the story. Young investigative journalist Deborah Fielding (Kathryn Fiore), on the other hand, poses a different kind of threat to the project, as she unknowingly has a part to play in Dr. Fibrian's elaborate plans. Laughably, given her penchant for wearing tight jeans around her tiny waist, Deborah is supposedly a few months pregnant. That sort of works out, though, because those tight jeans and a pretty face are about all Fiore brings to the table; if she has any real acting skills, she pretty much keeps them to herself throughout the course of this entire movie.

Lest there be any doubt, I hereby declare Necessary Evil a lousy movie. The only thing worse than the acting is the script, and there's no sign of action or suspense at any point in the film. After you waste almost a million dollars on something, I guess you have to go ahead and release it -- but that doesn't make it right.