Archives: A
- E F - N O
- Z Posters Who
We Are and Why We Do What We Do
BLU-RAY DVDs
Batman Begins
Black Hawk Down
Blade Runner
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
District Nine
Defiance
Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious movies set
Fifth Element
The Hangover
Incredible HULK
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man
Kill Bill 1 & 2
James Bond Ultimate ed v1James Bond Ultimate ed v2James Bond Ultimate ed v3
Julie & Julia
Moon
Public Enemies
Rambo box set
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
This is Spinal Tap
Terminator
Terminator Salvation
Terminator 2
Top Gun
Total Recall
300
Transformers: Revenge of Fallen
Ultimate Matrix coll
Twilight
Underworld
Watchmen (dir cut)
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Wolverine
BLU-Ray for family DVDs
Bolt
A Bug's Life
Cars
Chronicles of Narnia set
Coraline
Ghostbusters
Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Order of Phoenix
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
Ice Age/Alvin + Chipmunks set
The Incredibles
Jungle Book
Juno
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters Inc
Nightmare Before Xmas
101 Dalmatians
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Pixar short films
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Sleeping Beauty
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White & 7 Dwarfs
Star Trek motion pictures set
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Transformers SE
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in Release:
Alice in Wonderland
An Education
Avatar
Blind Side, the
Brooklyn's Finest
Green Zone
How to Train Your Dragon
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Proposal
Red Clif
She's Out of My League
A Single Man
Waking Sleeping Beauty
DVDs on Sale:
An American in Paris
Batman
Begins
Blade
Runner
Blind Side
The Dark Knight
Day the Earth Stood Still
Die Hard collection 1-4
District Nine
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
The Hangover
Indiana
Jones trilogy
Inglorious Basterds
Lord
of Rings trilogy
Ultimate
Matrix set
Monty
Python - Holy Grail
Moon
South
Park Movie
Star
Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Terminator Salvation
Up
Wall-E
Watchmen - Ultimate cut
Woodstock
X-Men
Trilogy
X-Men Origins Wolverine
DisneyPixar/family DVDs
Alice
in Wonderland
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bolt
Cinderella
Coraline
E.T.
Harry
Potter yrs 1-4 set
Harry Potter
& Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
& Order of Phoenix
Kung Fu Panda
The
Lion King
Mary
Poppins 45th LE
Pinocchio
Ratatouille
Shrek Trilogy
Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Star Trek movies set
Star
Trek TOS (TV)
ST:TNG complete tv set
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
Looney
Toons
Golden Age DVD
Volume
1
Volume
2
Volume
3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD
Season
1
Season
2
Season
3
Popeye the Sailor DVD
v.1 1933 - 1938
v.2 1938 - 1940
v.3 1941 - 1943
75th anniversary coll.ed.
Cop Land
Starring
Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel
Annabella Sciorra, Peter Berg, Michael Rapaport and Janeane Garofalo
Written and Directed by James Mangold
Website: www.miramax.com
IN SHORT: Passable isn't enough if you've got monster expectations.
Put the star names in a line and read very quickly: Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liota, Peter Berg, and up and comers Michael Rapaport, Ray Liotta. On the female supporting side add Annabella Sciorra, Janeane Garofalo and Cathy Moriarty. Now take a deep breath and flush all them expectations out the window. The movie is called Cop Land and, thankfully, it isn't another Sleepers.
For, as much as the press has made a big deal of Sylvester Stallone's 39 pound weight gain -- the press always seems to be more obsessed with weight than Hollywood stars are supposed to be -- it's something that works well for Sly. Playing Freddy Heflin, a small town sheriff in a town full of city cops, not being buff allows Stallone to concentrate on his acting ability. Lest we forget, he does have some of those and they kick thespian ass in this flick.
The problem is that there is very little for him to do. There are so many stories within stories in this effort from writer/ director James Mangold that the important one doesn't stand full front and center.
Central story is that of young cop Murray Babitch (Michael Rapaport) who causes the death of a pair of crackheads on New York's George Washington Bridge. Pretty soon Babitch swan dives off the bridge -- maybe -- and the media has a field day reporting the death of a man who was once a hero cop. Internal Affairs (Robert De Niro) doesn't buy any of it for a second, because Babitch comes from a town in Jersey where all the resident cops are suspected of being corrupt. De Niro's detective wants to bring down the whole town.
Freddie doesn't buy it either, because he's seen Babitch, who is very much alive. But in a town where one hand washes the other, keeping silent could mean a uniform of blue and a job across the river. The NYPD uniform is what Freddie wants, but deafness in one ear has kept it from him and, to be honest, he's a bit too slow for the gig.
While setting speed traps and dealing with earth shaking matters like abandoned garbage and restless kids, Freddie is also stuck square in the middle of another officer's extra-marital indiscretion (involving Berg, Sciorra, Keitel and Moriarty). That leads to its own pair of stories branching off from the main. Freddie's best friend (Ray Liotta), also a cop, may be dealing drugs and has a pair of stories of his own. Topping it all off is the fact that Freddie ain't Mother Theresa. He steals quarters from parking meters to feed a pinball habit. No one is clean in this film.
Which is fine by Cranky. Stallone builds for himself a solid character, a man who is never going to make it on almost any level. When everything comes down, you feel for him. Which is what good acting is about.
The problem is that Cop Land features a high octane team burning low octane gas. There are too many miniscule details in an overwritten script to rock the house. Keitel, Rapaport and Liotta all deliver what they need to. Harvey Keitel is the top of the heap bad cop who, essentially, runs the town. He's done this type before and he does it again, very well. Rapaport's screwed up kid and Liotta's frazzled verge-of-breakdown characters are also stock for these actors. De Niro is way out of place as the IAD guy. What we expect, remembering his previous killer perfs doesn't materialize, because it never needs to.
Cop Land builds slowly and surely and fizzles. The endgame just doesn't pack the emotional wallop that you'd expect. I'm being kind. More than once, the viewers I spoke with after the preview used the same word to describe the flick . . .
"Stupid."
Monster expectations can kill this sucker dead.
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price for Cop Land, he would have paid . . .
$5.00
Cop Land is interesting, but it's just OK.
 |
Click to buy films starring Robert DeNiro |
| Click to buy films starring Sylvester Stallone | |
| Click to buy films starring Harvey Keitel | |
| Click to buy films starring Janeane Garofalo |