The SmarK DVD Rant for Cop Land �” Director’s Cut.
– Funny how things work out sometimes �” this was supposed to be the big comeback effort for Stallone, his version of Pulp Fiction, as he gained a ton of weight for the role of Freddy Heflin, and was surrounded by big name talent and a hot young director only to see the project flop and his career fall further into obscurity. It’s too bad, too, because despite some flaws, this is still one of his stronger performances and probably his best dramatic performance outside of Rocky. The first one.
The Film
“Being right isn’t a bullet-proof vest”
This movie looks at the question of who polices the police, specifically the sub-class of hard-boiled New York cops that seem to infest night-time drama. Imagine, if you will, what the tough cops of NYPD Blue do after they go home at night. Would they want to build homes in the creep-infested New York, or would they leave the city and form their own sort-of frontier settlement of cops, where they can police themselves and the only apparent crime is being black?
If you guessed the second one, you’ve got the basic premise of Cop Land, as NY’s finest and most corrupt take mob money and found the town of Garrison, New Jersey, where they can live out the illusion of domestic bliss and apple pie with a minimum of interference from Internal Affairs. To that end, law enforcement in Garrison is handled by Freddy Heflin (played by an overweight Stallone), a former teenage hero who saved the life of a beauty queen and suffered permanent hearing loss in his right ear as a result. This leaves him unable to get onto the force despite being a crack shot and a smart guy, so his cop buddies set him up as sheriff of their little town, with a staff of two, on the assumption that he’ll make sure to be looking the right way when shit happens. And shit happens, all right.
Specifically, hero cop Murray “Superboy” Babitch gets into a late-night traffic squabble with two black teens while driving drunk, and shoots them dead because of what he thought was a gun. It wasn’t, and even the best efforts of the rest of the force to PLANT a gun in the car won’t work, so his uncle and protector, Ray Hanlon (played with his usual brilliance by Harvey Keitel) decides Superboy needs to jump off the bridge and find a new life, thus leaving him as a hero instead of bringing the entire city down on the force with charges of racism. Superboy’s “death” is the worst-kept secret in Garrison, as New York thinks he’s dead but he freely goes to parties in the small town, until even Freddy knows the secret.
Freddy is, in a word, slow. Not the colloquial “slow”, but the more literal form of it. He thinks slow, moves slow, and is overly cautious thanks to his initial accident to the point where every decision takes him what seems to be weeks to make and the other cops openly laugh at him. Freddy finds out that Superboy is still alive and his friends are dirty, but when IA comes knocking at his door looking for help, he’s unable to take action and their case is prematurely closed due to political pressure. Freddy’s painful indecision and helpless feeling in the face of seeing his quiet town falling apart carries the movie, although there’s a ton of other strong performances, like Ray Liotta playing (what else?) a coked-up loser who burns down his own home for the insurance money. Again, the reveal of that “secret” is no big deal, because everyone but Freddy caught on long before.
When Superboy’s protectors find themselves facing the firing squad unless they actually come up with a body to prove the suspicious death of the former hero, they decide to turn on the unsuspecting (and rather dumb) kid and make a body from the obvious source. When he escapes and runs to Freddy for help, it finally causes the sleeping giant to wake up and DO something for once.
The movie builds, slowly like Freddy, to Freddy finally taking action in what ends up as an old-fashioned shootout from a western. Once Freddy is moved to action, he MOVES. Even then, slowly, but surely, with as much sadness as action.
It’s a jarring performance for fans of Stallone’s previous movies, because he’s a flawed hero and it’s almost an in-action hero. Freddy is as much to blame for the trouble as anyone else, because he lets is all happen on his watch and tries to rationalize it later. I don’t think the movie 100% works either, as there’s just too much backstory to cram into a two-hour movie, and even the additional few minutes of stuff added to the new director’s cut feel like the movie is too short. This is really the sort of movie that should have been done by a Scorsese and stretched to three hours, or else shortened dramatically and paced a bit better. Plus the script is, shall we say, ridiculously contrived at points for the sake of trying create shocking moments, and just didn’t feel right to me.
Still, it’s a very good and very underrated movie, especially for those looking for a TON of appearances by mob movie alumnus and future Sopranos regulars (look for Paulie Walnuts in a sort-of cameo in a newspaper shot) and is well worth a look to see Stallone’s last grasp at being a star again before self-parody kicked in.
The Video
Pretty nice transfer, actually, with a new anamorphic transfer in the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. It has a very dark look, as you’d expect, but that’s intended (I’d imagine), but the print looked crystal clear to me and the colors were all good. Very nice.
The Audio
Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, this is really front-loaded, with the only real surround action being in the music and the limited action sequences. The big shootout sequence features a nice effect so you can experience things from the viewpoint of the deaf Freddy, which is pretty cool. The dialogue is clear, however, so it’s a good audio mix.
The Extras
Well, this is certainly better than the original bare-bones disc, although not by much. You get
– A feature commentary with director James Mangold, Sly Stallone, the producer, and Robert Patrick. It’s a pretty fun and involving commentary, with Stallone in particular being open to mocking himself over his weight, and Patrick is always good on these things.
– A 15-minute stroke-piece presented as a “making of” featurette, which doesn’t say anything much more interesting than having the actors talk about how great James Mangold is and stuff.
– A 2-minute storyboard comparison bit using the shootout sequence.
– 2 quick deleted scenes that explored the rampant racism among the cops and showed how brainwashed Freddy really was.
That’s about it. The commentary is cool, the rest is dead weight.
The Ratings:
The Film: ****1/2
The Video: ****
The Audio: ***1/2
The Extras: **
