20 best movies like Strapped (1993)

Former Green Beret Louis Stevens returns to his hometown of Miami after completing military service in Brazil, only to learn that his old high school has become a haven for gangs and drug dealers. After Stevens uses his capoeira skills to kick several drug dealers off of the school property, Kerrigan, one of Stevens' old teachers, sees the impact that Stevens has on the students. Kerrigan gives him the task of teaching Capoeira to a handful of the worst at-risk students at the school.

Paul Kersey is back at working vigilante justice when when his fiancée, Olivia, has her business threatened by mobsters

Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.

A violent street gang, the Rebels, rule the streets of Gary, Indiana. The Rebels shoot Marvin Bookman, a store-keeper, for giving the police information about a drive-by shooting they committed. Marvin's son, former NFL star John who created the Rebels, returns to Gary to be with his father and, with a little help from his friends, to destroy the Rebels his way.

Trying to bootstrap his way out of Brooklyn's mean streets is Diamond, a rap musician. With his long-time pal Gage acting as his manager, he's trying to lay down a demo tape with cut-rate studio time. To pay the bills, he and Gage run drugs for "Mr. B." Inside a week, Diamond's beloved mother dies suddenly, his father appears after an absence of 12 years and wants a relationship, and his girlfriend Kia tells him she's pregnant, asking him if he's ready to be a father. Gage steals $100,000 in a multiple-felony robbery so that Diamond can record a full album, not knowing it's Mr. B's money he's taken. B wants his money, Diamond wants his music, Tia wants an answer.

Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.

Lucas, a 14-year-old boy inducted into the gang life in Washington D.C., is determined that his 10-year-old brother won't follow the same path. When an Afghanistan war veteran comes into the neighborhood, an opportunity arises.

1950s New York City. A bad and bloody gang war is about to erupt on the dysfunctional streets of Brooklyn. The Deuces at war with the vicious Vipers. Scott Kalvert directs this tale of lust, drugs, mayhem and madness during one hot summer on the streets of New York.

Gino Felino (Steven Seagal) is an NYPD detective from Brooklyn who knows everyone and everything in his neighborhood. Killing his Partner was someone's mistake, because he's now Out For Justice.

A former Marine turned doorman at a luxury New York City high-rise must outsmart and battle a group of art thieves and their ruthless leader — while struggling to protect her sister's family. As the thieves become increasingly desperate and violent, the doorman calls upon her deadly fighting skills to end the showdown.

Two detectives investigating a gang-related find themselves targeted by both gang members and crooked cops.

A tough gang of teenage girls are looking for love and fighting for turf on the mean streets of the city! Bad girls to the core, these impossibly outrageous high school hoodlums go where they want ... and create mayhem wherever they go!

The true story of Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing biker who finds God and became a crusader for hundreds of Sudanese children who've been kidnapped and pressed into duty as soldiers.

Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.

A teenage vigilante seeks revenge on a group of violent thugs who raped her handicapped sister and murdered her best friend.

Eddie Lomax (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a drifter who has been in a suicidal funk since the death of his close friend Johnny (Danny Trejo). Riding his motorcycle into a small desert town where Johnny once lived, Lomax is confronted by a gang of toughs, who beat him and steal his bike. However, Lomax is not a man to take an injustice lying down, and soon he begins exacting a violent revenge on the men who stole his motorcycle, with local handyman Jubal Early (Pat Morita) lending a hand and several area ladies offering aid and comfort.

A young Brooklyn boy witnesses the brutal murder of his mother and grows up obsessed with finding her killer. Thus begins his life as a quiet, straight-A student by day and a self-appointed hero at night. But what is a real hero? And who decides what is right or wrong? As the boundaries blur, Sean's dual life wears on his psyche and his two worlds careen dangerously close to colliding. Like a graphic novel you can't put down, Boy Wonder challenges morality, distorting perceptions of what is right and what is justified, as it races to its shocking conclusion.

An Indian Vietnam veteran trains five street punks in the Everglades to fight vice in Miami.

While racing to a boxing match, Frank, Mike, John and Rey get more than they bargained for. A wrong turn lands them directly in the path of Fallon, a vicious, wise-cracking drug lord. After accidentally witnessing Fallon murder a disloyal henchman, the four become his unwilling prey in a savage game of cat & mouse as they are mercilessly stalked through the urban jungle in this taut suspense drama

The Zero Hour tells the story of the La Parca (Zapata 666), a fearsome assassin who is forced to kidnap a private clinic to save the love of his life, Ladydi (Amanda Key). They soonreached the police and a media circus with them, who make our character into a national hero.La Parca finds that saving the life of Ladydi be difficult, but escaped with his followers will be an almost impossible task. Time starts to run out, and what seemed like a perfect plan will end in a frantic ending where La Parca is forced to confront past mistakes, and discover that their worst enemies are closer than he imagined.

Frank Castle is staying in a bad neighborhood, where he encounters a gang that terrorizes its residents.

A young man slides back into a life of crime after reuniting with a shady acquaintance from his past.

Hannah and Amber Baker are trapped in a dark Southern underworld of violence, drugs and bikers. Both live in fear of their "Uncle Frank" Stinson, the ruthless leader of a crime organization.

Jeff, a young delinquent, is enrolled by his father in a kenpo school, in the hopes of teaching the boy some self-discipline. Years later, Jeff's mentor, Kim, is being threatened by one of the Korean mafia families. Jeff tries to help his old friend, but is too late to prevent Kim's death at the hands of an unknown hitman. Vowing revenge, Jeff takes on all of the families, using his martial arts skills to find the man who killed his friend.

After assuming his dead cellmate's identity to get with his girlfriend, an ex-con finds himself the reluctant participant in a casino heist.

A heroic high school teacher leads a band of students trapped in school by violent drug-runners.

During a routine prison work detail, convict Piper is chained to Dodge, a cyberhacker, when gunfire breaks out. Apparently, the attack is related to stolen money that the Mafia is after, and some computer files that somebody wants desperately to bury. The pair, who don't exactly enjoy each other's company, escape and must work together if they are to reach Atlanta alive. Luckily, they meet a woman who may be willing to help them.

A DEA agent and his brother, a Los Angeles cop, battle the Russian mafia.

Scott Barnes is an alcoholic turned social worker hellbent on saving a young boy named Tommy from self-destructing when he finds out he has begun selling crack in an organization called YIP, run by Carlos.

The real life story of Andres Lopez Lopez aka "Frecita" during his years involved with the Colombian Cartel aka "Cartel Norte del Valle"

Terry Noonan returns home to New York's Hells Kitchen after a ten year absence. He soon hooks up with childhood pal Jackie who is involved in the Irish mob run by his brother Frankie. Terry also rekindles an old flame with Jackie's sister Kathleen. Soon, however, Terry is torn between his loyalty to his friends and his loyalties to others.

This South African movie tracks the rise of a once-petty criminal to the heights of the criminal underworld. After cutting his teeth on hijacking, before moving onto bigger game, an ambitious man hits a setback when most of his gang are shot.

Griffin, a rollerblader in the not so distant future of an economically wrecked Los Angeles, races against time to save both his younger brother and the city from the fate dealt out by the fascist rollerblading street gang, the Rollerboys.

A mythic motorcycle tale of father and son", this is the story of Manuel Galloway, also known as "the King of Cali", the president of a motorcycle club whose members are all African-American men, mostly white-collar workers who exchange their suits and ties at night and on weekends for leather outfits and motorcycle helmets.

A Russian ex-hit man is called back to Russia for one last job. This time against his former employees, the Russian mob.

After returning home from a traumatic tour of duty in Iraq, John finds himself struggling with PTSD. What little peace he had managed to build around him is shattered one fateful day when he rescues a local call girl from a group of violent Aryan Brotherhood pimps. Having killed several of the high-ranking brotherhood during the rescue, John and his family are now the prime targets of Hollis, the ruthless criminal leader of the group.

Infernal Affairs III is a 2003 Hong Kong crime thriller film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. It is the third installment in the Infernal Affairs film series, and is both a sequel and a semi-prequel to the original film, as it intercuts events before and after the events in the original.

Erin Bell is an LAPD detective who, as a young cop, was placed undercover with a gang in the California desert with tragic results. When the leader of that gang re-emerges many years later, she must work her way back through the remaining members and into her own history with them to finally reckon with the demons that destroyed her past.

Incompatible fugitive recovery agents, the flighty Jersey Bellini (Michael Dudikoff) and his more serious-minded female partner, B.B. (Lisa Howard), have, for the last time, ticked off mobster Wald (Tony Curtis) by apprehending his rather inept henchmen just as they are about to commit a robbery or kill one of Wald's enemies. That's when Wald turns their fate over to the ruthless Crazy Carlos (Steve Bacic), with the intention of having Bellini and B.B. killed. But the hapless bounty hunters keep having good luck just when they need it most. ~ Buzz McClain, Rovi

In Minangkabau, West Sumatera, Yuda a skilled practitioner of Silat Harimau is in the final preparations to begin his "Merantau" a century's old rites-of-passage to be carried out by the community's young men that will see him leave the comforts of his idyllic farming village and make a name for himself in the bustling city of Jakarta.

When an EPA representative is murdered in a small Appalachian community, EPA undercover agent Jack Taggart is sent in—posing as a handyman working with a Christian relief agency—to determine what happened.

Two corrupt cops have a successful, seemingly perfect money making scheme- they sell drugs that they seize from dealers, kill the dealers, and blame the crimes on street gangs. Their scheme is going along smoothly until they kill an undercover DEA agent posing as a dealer, and then try to cover-up their crime.

Jeff Powers is the newest member of a very elite and very secret LAPD division. Their mission is to target important criminals and to get them to stop. Police brutality is not a known term for the division and they will stop at nothing to get the job done, even if it means murder.

Jimmy Cuervo is a down-on-his-luck ex-con living in a polluted mining town on a reservation that would run him out of town if not for the remainder of his probation. With his time nearly finished, he plans to start a new life with his girlfriend Lily , and leave the town for good. But Luc Crash and Lola Byrne head up a local gang of local Satanists who murder Jimmy and Lily in a brutal ritual.

Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.

A young man about to get married earns extra cash by driving a local mobster, but things go awry when the mobster is shot dead by a rival crime boss.

A group of Russian mobsters have stolen a huge supply of paper for printing U.S. currency, and are now flooding the market with conterfeit bills. When one of the mobsters decides to give herself in and hand over a data CD to the DA, she is shot and killed, but not before handing the disc to an unsuspecting Tommy Lee. Despite working with the police as a martial arts instructor, Lee doesn't go to the cops with the disc, but instead goes on the run, giving the mafia time to kidnap his daughter and hold as a hostage in exchange for return of the disc. Will Tommy ever see his daughter again?

An elaborate heist unites 8 strangers in a simultaneous assault on targets all over the city- and explodes in a hailstorm of gunfire and high-speed chases in this powerful action-thriller. Recruited by a Mafia nightclub owner (Eric Roberts), 4 teams launch a brutal cross-town attack to retrieve suitcases full of cash. But as the violence escalates, the team members discover just who their real target has been all along - and the shocking truth they have in common.

Ace is an impressionable young man working for a dry cleaning business. His friend, drug dealer Mitch goes to prison. In an unrelated incident, he finds some cocaine in a pants pocket. Soon, Ace finds himself dealing cocaine for Lulu. Via lucky breaks and solid interpersonal skills, Ace moves to the top of the Harlem drug world. Of course, unfaithful employees and/or rivals conspire to bring about Ace's fall.

Ray Trueblood, member of a street gang, is framed by an enemy of a rival gang, Billy "Spider" Masters. Ray is accused of killing a cop and he has to escape leaving behind his little brother, Donny. Ten years later Ray returns to his neighborhood to take his brother with him, but things are worse than he could expect: his brother, now 18 years old, hates him and is a member of Billy Masters' gang. Furthermore, Billy Masters is looking for revenge and... the police is still after Ray for the murder of the police officer.