Review of Cop Land (1997) by Wololooo — 31 Jul 2012

Cop Land presents us with an interesting premise - in a town just across the river from Manhattan, a closely-knit group of NYPD detectives have founded a town built as a mostly crime-free haven for their families. Behind the calm appearance of the town, however, is a deep web of corruption. When hero cop "Superboy" accidentally guns down two black teenagers, he is whisked away under the illusion of a suicide, and the rest of the films follows the attempts of an IA detective (De Niro) to uncover the conspiracy.

The town's Sherrif, played by Stallone, pulls no real weight and is well past his prime, but he is effectively the only man who can blow the whistle on the operation. Stallone gives a very toned-down performance, much less narcissistic and self-indulgent than many of his previous roles. Keitel, De Niro and especially Liotta are all great, as are the rest of the supporting cast, making the most of the inconsistent dialogue. The narrative plays out in a very real and human way, with little over-dramatization or mindless action sequences, which I thought definitely added to the film. There's a huge amount of characters and subplots, and because of this many were quite undeveloped and I was left with some unanswered questions that I felt could easily have been answered. The final shootout seems lazily shot and edited, giving what I thought was a somewhat underwhelming finish to what was a huge buildup. Aside from these flaws however, Cop Land was a very entertaining film, and while it didn't blow me away it certainly outdid my expectations.