The Mod Squad (1999) - Movie Synopsis & Plot

They were on their way to jail. One black. One white. One blonde. One from the hood- Lincoln Hayes (Omar Epps), Arson. One from money-Pete Cochrane, Robbery. And one from the streets-Julie Barnes (Claire Danes), Assault. Three kids with nothing in common but the fact that Captain Adam Greer (Dennis Farina) needs them to go where the cops can't, infiltrating the seedy, drug-infested L.A. streets and nightlife. Working undercover. Mixing in with the hip crowd. Busting the parasites preying on the young.

They have a few rules: No badges. No guns. No turning in other kids.

There's only one problem. A cache of drugs has disappeared from the police evidence locker and all signs point to dirty cops. Everyone is a suspect and the kids are outsiders in their own precinct. Now it's down to the adolescent squad to take it to the streets and solve the case their way. Solid.

The Mod Squad is the responsibility of LAPD Capt. Adam Greer (Dennis Farina), who believes in the mutually beneficial arrangement to give three juvenile delinquents a shot at redemption (not to mention a clean record) while also helping the department police a culture it barely understands. The kids don't initially make great cops. When they start screwing around undercover at an underground party, they turn a raid into a brawl. And the police officers start questioning the effectiveness of having the squad in the first place. Is the payoff worth the risks?

Greer perseveres with the project, reminding them that his young recruits can get into a thousand places Greer's men cannot.

Back on the job, the three are given their next assignment. Working in tandem with two veteran undercover vice officers, they infiltrate a downtown club where the cops fear that music and dancing is taking a back seat to teenage prostitution. The job seems easy enough.

But when drugs disappear from the police evidence locker, the kids are thrown into a typical TV cop situation that has suddenly turned dead serious. Dirty cops, drops at the airport, secret meetings in abandoned warehouses-it all really happens. Without the benefit of guns, badges or police protection, the underage, inexperienced and outmanned Squad are going to have to take matters into their own hands if they want to get out of this assignment alive.

The Mod Squad contemporizes the premise of Aaron Spelling's successful television series · which debuted in 1968 and ran for four years, encompassing 100 episodes-with a 1970s sensibility.

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