Miami Vice meets 21 Jump Street meets... Rambo!?!?
So the answer to how this got made is probably: "because the 80s" but nothing brings together so many things wrong with that decade into 90 minutes as this movie.
The plot summary does an admirable job of making sense of this mess: "From the creators of Miami Vice comes this action-packed film about five punks who are whipped into shape by a Vietnam vet through a new get-tough juvenile delinquency program. They take the program a step further by forming a vigilante squad to take down the city's top dope dealers." <------That is an accurate description of the plot this movie.
Produced by Michael Mann at the height of the success of Miami Vice - the man could do no wrong creatively - or at least that's what the folks who greenlit this thought.
Early appearances by Laurence (then Larry) Fishburne, a young James Remar (this is the film he did after leaving Aliens), Stephen Lang, and Lauren Holly in one of her first roles.
This movie has everything worthy of a great HDTGM episode, just check out the clothes in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaI0Fzqj3Bc