The Glimmer Man is a 1996 American buddy-cop action comedy film directed by John Gray and produced by Steven Seagal. The film stars Seagal, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Bob Gunton, and Brian Cox. The film was released in the United States on October 4, 1996.
Seagal plays Lieutenant Jack Cole, a former government intelligence agent known as "the Glimmer Man", who now works as a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. Wayans co-stars as Cole's partner Detective Jim Campbell.
Plot
Jack Cole was once a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative known as "the Glimmer Man", because he could move so quickly and quietly through the jungle that his victims would only see a glimmer before they died. Having retired from the CIA, Coleversed in Buddhism and unaccustomed to working with othershas become a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Cole is partnered with tough, no-nonsense detective Jim Campbell, who has little patience for Cole's New Age philosophies and "outsider" attitude. Cole and Campbell must set aside their differences when they are assigned to track down a serial killer known as "the Family Man", named for his habit of killing entire households.
The Family Man's latest victims turn out to be Cole's former wife Ellen and her current husband Andrew Dunleavy. When Cole's fingerprints are found on Ellen's body, Campbell and he suspect that Smith - Jack's former superior in the CIA - may be connected with the killings. Cole contacts Smith, who (unbeknownst to Campbell and him) has been working with local crime boss Frank Deverell.
Cole and Campbell receive a tip that leads them to Christopher Maynard. Maynard insists that the Family Man murders were actually committed by more than one killer. Only the slayings that occurred prior to Jack's arrival in Los Angeles were Maynard's work; more recently, a second party has been massacring households and blaming it on Maynard, whom Cole is forced to shoot in self defense.
Seeking a lead on the "other" Family Man, Cole goes to the home of Celia Rostov: Deverell's Russian translator and a recent victim of the serial killer. Jack finds out that the Rostovs had tickets to Russia, paid for by Deverell's company. The Family Man makes an unsuccessful attempt on the lives of both Cole and Campbell, blowing up the latter's apartment. The Family Man is revealed to work for both Deverell and Smith, who have murder contracts out on both of the detectives and also on Johnny, Deverell's own stepson.
Cole and Campbell chat with Johnny's girlfriend, Millie, who tells them where to find Johnny. The detectives trick and kill a hitman sent by Johnny's stepfather. Johnny informs Campbell and Cole that Donald Cunningham, Deverell's private security chief, is the other Family Man whose killings were confused with Maynard's. Johnny also reveals Smith's partnership with Deverell.
The detectives confront Smith, who reveals that Deverell has been smuggling chemical weapons into the USA from Russia and selling said arms to the Serbian underworld. Smith is arranging contacts for the deal, which is being cut by the Russian Liberation Fighters (the Organizatsiya). The sale has been scheduled to take place at a welfare hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
When Cole and Campbell storm the hotel to disrupt the weapons deal, Cunningham kills Deverell (because Deverell set up Cunningham for the LAPD, to clear himself of the arms-running charges) and wounds Jim. Cole fights Cunningham, who is finally tossed through a window and impaled on a wrought iron fence. As Cole semi-humorously observes, "...You don't look like you're gonna wake up happy now."
Campbell half-jokes that Cole has brought him nothing but bad luck ever since they became partners. Cole says he will keep that in mind, as Campbell is driven off to the hospital.