Quotes

Hoover: This isn't America, Jack. This is L.A.

[Repeated line to Coolidge.]

Hoover: Is that what your psychiatrist told you?

Hoover: Let me tell ya how it goes, Elleroy. Ya meet somebody. Maybe they're a little off-center, but they tell ya the truth, and ya like 'em — ya like 'em for that. And one thing leads to another, and ya end up in bed. Now that's weak, Elleroy.

Coolidge: Max…

Hoover: Now listen to me! Nobody gets hurt. Now, you go home, and you see your wife, and you're feelin' bad. Ya wanna unload it, ya wanna get it off your chest. So you tell 'er. And now she's hurt. Now that's weak, too, Elleroy. But it's also cruel. It's just goddam cruel.

[Hoover turns from Coolidge, but turns back again.]

Hoover: Take a— here, here's something for ya. Here's something that doesn't cost ya twenty-five bucks an hour. You carry your own water, Elleroy. Ya understand? Carry your own water.

Hoover: I probably see too much.

General Timms: What do you see?

Hoover: People dead before their time.

General Timms: That's the history of the world, Lieutenant. Some people die before their time so that others can live; it's the cornerstone of civilization, uh… war, religion, democracy… a hundred die so that a thousand may live.

Hoover: Well, General, I take 'em one at a time.

Hall: What'd Timms have to say?

Hoover: He said the cornerstone of civilization was human sacrifice.

[After beating FBI Special Agent McCafferty senseless…]

Hoover: See? That's federal property. This isn't. This is L.A. This is my town. Out here you're a trespasser. Out here I can pick you up, burn your house, fuck your wife, and kill your dog. And the only thing that'll protect you is if I can't find you. And I already found you.

Major cast

• Nick Nolte — Police Lieutenant Max Hoover
• Melanie Griffith — Katherine Hoover
• Chazz Palminteri — Elleroy Coolidge
• Michael Madsen — Eddie Hall
• Chris Penn — Arthur Relyea
• Treat Williams — Colonel Nathan Fitzgerald
• Jennifer Connelly — Allison Pond
• Daniel Baldwin — McCafferty
• Andrew McCarthy — Jimmy Fields
• John Malkovich — General Thomas Timms