COP LAND (1997) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: James Mangold Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Annabella Sciorra, Robert Patrick, Peter Berg, Michael Rapaport, Jeaneane Garafolo, Cathy Moriarty, Noah Emmerich, Deborah Harry, Frank Vincent
"Stallone. There's the quintessential thespian. This guy's got as much range as a daisy air-rifle," said Dennis Miller numerous times. Well, Stallone may have drudged through countless Rambo-esque roles, occasionally taking a "break" from them to do horrible comedy (but I am still going to say that I enjoyed "Oscar." Sorry.), always emerging rich but constantly ostricized by his peers (i.e. Mr. Miller).
When his follow-up film to "Daylight" (*snicker*) was announced as a drama and the sophomoric film by writer/director James Mangold (of "Heavy," a film I didn't see), who actually cast Sly in the lead, surrounding him with actors like DeNiro, Keitel, Liotta, and Sciorra, I know I'm not the only one who got a good laugh. But as the months wore on after the announcement, I began to sit on the fence on the topic and wait till it actually comes out before I either crucify him or build some kind of monument to the guy that's not in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum. And now that I've seen it...
Well, lemme sadistically hold you in suspense for a second here. The story revolves around the slow-moving, kinda-deaf sheriff of Garrison, NJ, Freddy Heflin (Sly), and his kafkaesque problem he has to deal with. Now Garrison is a town where almost the entire population is an NYPD cop - where the cops come for some form of safety out of the boundaries of the nasty city. The unquestionable and unnofficial leader of them is Ray (Keitel), who arranged everything and runs it like some kind of Don Corleone who hangs out in bars with his men.
Freddy watches them with envy but with some distance. See, he went and saved a girl when he was young (who would grow up to be Sciorra, who kinda resembles Talia Shire a bit in this flick), and, on account of his bum ear, was not allowed to be a cop. And since 99% of the population is either cop or wife/kin-of-cop, there's really not much to do. There are only two other officers (Jeneane Garafolo and Noah Emmerich) and there duties include dealing with garbage disputes and uselessy doing speed checks on a bunch of cops who just tell them "Just say 'Oops, we nabbed some good guys. I think I'll go look for some bad guys.'"
But an Internal Affairs man, Moe Tilden (DeNiro), shows up in town and talks to Freddy about the corruption that he already knows about. Earlier in the picture, they stumbled up a bit in relation to a kinda stupid Garrison cop (Michael Rapaport) who shot a pair of guys who sideswiped him since he thought they had a gun. The guy then jumped off the bridge...or did he? Since Freddy knows all about it and is kind of scared to go take on all his friends, he has a giant moral delimna on his shoulders. One angel is scared, the other is speaking the element of justice, truth, and good to him. Also on the scared angel is a bunch of people telling him to not screw with the Garrison community which has been expertly financed by Ray to ensure a kind of hypocritical peace, ruled by a mafia of New York's finest.
The cast is utterly huge, drawing a bunch of scene-chewing actors together (i.e. DeNiro and Keitel, who have one lone scene together), serving them with an risky topping. The actual film's exciting and riveting enough - but the topping is exciting and riveting no matter how good or bad it is. So this whole "Can Sly do it?" topping is just right.
Well, here it is - Sly rocks. Period. They guy creates an emmotional character who you care about, identify with, and sometimes even almost cry with. Freddy's much like any of us: alone in our principles and scared to be alone to do anything about them. He's such a well-written character for the sole reason that he's human. And Sly, who is almost the character anyway, does a fantastically moving job with the role. No more grunting and saying cheesy one-liners. No more pushing some guy up into a staligmate (or is it the other one that points downwards?). Just Sly in his buff - 40 pounds heavier and 1000 times better than he's ever been. This is not only his best performance in years, but simply his best performance.
Will Stallone get an Oscar nomination? I dunno. If the Oscars were nominated right now, he'd definitely be up there. But I have a feeling this film will actually revitalize his sagging career and he might just nab a nomination since, well, it's Sly and he actually rocked for a change.
The supporting cast is amazing and all, but nothing can stand up to Stallone's, probably because most of them are not real humans. The two closest things to human are Freddy's best friend, a coke-addicted corrupt cop (Liotta - who else for that kind of character?) who begins douting his choice in life, and Freddy's distant love interest, Sciorra, who was saved by Freddy and married a jerk cop (Peter Berg).
All the elements create an interesting character study whic borrows elements from "High Noon," "Rio Bravo," and "Straw Dogs." But the plot and everything just affects Freddy's character, who finds himself in the parallel sitution to his saving-the-girl situation earlier in his life. There, he acted quickly and lost his hearing. Decades later, he's afraid to bust the move and is pretty content to just lay home on his couch and listen to Springsteen (yuck). The Freddy character is what will make this film endure.
But even if the Freddy character were not as interesting as he is, the film would still kick some great ass. It's intense, interesting, and always entertaining. And the thought of these cops doing some of the stuff they do is just plain creepy. So, as I said, the Freddy character and Stallone's performance is what just adds to this amazing film, which is one of the better films I've seen all year.
MY RATING (out of 5): ****
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