Unlawful Entry is a 1992 American psychological thriller film directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Kurt Russell, Madeleine Stowe and Ray Liotta.

[2] The film involves a couple who befriend a lonely policeman, only for him to develop an unrequited fixation on the wife, leading to chilling consequences.

Police arrive and one officer, Pete Davis, takes an extra interest in their case due to their considerate approach.

When Michael expresses interest in getting revenge on the intruder, Pete invites him on a ride-along with him and his partner, Roy Cole.

On April 26, 1991, Daily Variety reported that Largo Entertainment's upcoming production would be Unlawful Entry, a psychological thriller set to begin principal photography in late summer 1991 in Los Angeles, California.

The film includes a scene in which Ray Liotta's character, a police officer, violently assaults an African American suspect.

Although the filming occurred before that incident, director Jonathan Kaplan mentioned that he attempted to "ignore it because the movie's not really about that."

However, following the officers' acquittal on April 29, 1992, and the subsequent riots in Los Angeles, the perception regarding urban violence in films underwent a change.

While the scene was considered crucial to the plot and could not be removed, Kaplan and producer Charles Gordon edited out most of the "lengthy" sequence.

"Pa La Ocha Tambo" and "Just a Little Dream" by Eddie Palmieri, "National Crime Awareness Week (Alfred Hitchcock Presents Mix)" by Sparks, Everybody's Free to Feel Good" by Rozalla, and "Don't Go to Strangers" by J. J.

The critical consensus reads, "Unlawful Entry may not depict a particularly novel or believable situation, but tense direction and a roundly committed cast make it easy to get caught up in the moment.

[9] Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote that despite being another film that follows in the mould of Fatal Attraction, he called it "a very effective victimization thriller", praising both Liotta and Russell's performances and Kaplan's direction of the script into "areas of social and class-structure observations" when dealing with unhinged police figures in an urban setting.

[10] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin was critical of the three main leads lacking depth and substance in the motivations of their characters but gave credit to Liotta for giving "complexity" to his role, a solid supporting cast and the "level-headed" direction Kaplan takes with the plot, even as it stretches credibility.