Cop Land is a
1997The year 1997 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Star Wars original trilogy's 20th Anniversary Special Editions are released.*Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace....
AmericanThe cinema of the United States has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
drama filmA drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, crime and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves,...
written and directed by
James MangoldJames Mangold is an American film director and screenwriter. He is perhaps best known for Walk the Line which he co-wrote and directed.-Biography:He is the son of artists Robert Mangold and Sylvia Plimack Mangold....
with an
ensemble castAn ensemble cast is a cast in which the principal performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on different characters in different episodes...
featuring
Sylvester StalloneSylvester Gardenzio Stallone , nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. One of the biggest box office draws in the world from the 1970s to the 1990s, Stallone is an icon of machismo and Hollywood action heroism...
,
Harvey KeitelHarvey Keitel is an American actor whose latest work is that of Detective Lieutenant Gene Hunt on ABC's crime drama Life on Mars...
,
Ray LiottaRaymond Liotta is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese...
,
Robert De NiroRobert Mario De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director, and producer.De Niro is well-known for his method acting and portrayals of conflicted, troubled characters and for his enduring collaboration with director Martin Scorsese...
,
Robert PatrickRobert Patrick, Jr. is an American actor. Born in Marietta, Georgia, he began his acting career performing at college when attending Bowling Green State University. He dropped out of college when drama class sparked his interest in acting...
,
Peter BergPeter Berg is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is known for directing films such as Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, The Rundown and Hancock.-Biography:...
, and
Michael RapaportMichael David Rapaport is an American actor and a comedian. He has acted in more than twenty films since the early 1990s.-Early life:...
.
Story
The film takes place in the fictional city of Garrison,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
, located across the
Hudson RiverThe Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. It rises at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains, flows past Albany, and finally forms the border between New York City and New Jersey at its mouth before emptying into...
from
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
near the
George Washington BridgeThe George Washington Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River, connecting the Washington Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City to Fort Lee in New Jersey by means of Interstate 95, U.S. Route 1/9. U.S...
where a large number of residents are
New York City Police DepartmentThe New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
officers. Stallone plays the quiet Freddy Heflin, the
hearing-impairedA hearing impairment or deafness is a full or partial decrease in the ability to detect or understand sounds. Caused by a wide range of biological and environmental factors, loss of hearing can happen to any organism that perceives sound...
sheriffA sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
of Garrison who admires his friends who are cops. Heflin had wanted to join the NYPD, but was rejected due to his injury. Although nominally the sheriff, Freddy's actual authority is limited to handling minor civil issues.
The real power in town belongs to the corrupt NYPD cops, primarily Ray Donlan (Keitel), who constantly reminds Heflin that he is only a local sheriff and is not really one of them. Consequently, Heflin spends most of his days listening to his vinyl records and longing for his high school sweetheart (
Annabella SciorraAnnabella Sciorra is an American film, television, and stage actress. Sciorra received an Independent Spirit Award nomination as best female lead for the 1989 film True Love, and came to widespread attention in her co-lead role in Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever...
), whom he saved from drowning at the cost of his hearing and who dumped him for a dysfunctional marriage with another cop, Joey Randone (
Peter BergPeter Berg is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is known for directing films such as Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, The Rundown and Hancock.-Biography:...
). Matters are further complicated by 'Figgsy' (Liotta), another corrupt NYPD officer who is a friend of Heflin's. Figgsy also has an ongoing rift with Randone, and is convinced his former partner was killed before he talked to Internal Affairs about Donlan and his group.
Starting the action off, Murray 'Superboy' Babitch (
Michael RapaportMichael David Rapaport is an American actor and a comedian. He has acted in more than twenty films since the early 1990s.-Early life:...
), Donlan's nephew, gets sideswiped on
George Washington BridgeThe George Washington Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River, connecting the Washington Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City to Fort Lee in New Jersey by means of Interstate 95, U.S. Route 1/9. U.S...
by a couple of
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry...
teens. Thinking that they had fired a gun at him (one of the teens had in fact raised a steering wheel-lock in a gun-like manner as Babitch's tire burst), he returns fire and they are killed in an ensuing crash. Worried about a possible racial incident, Donlan decides the best solution is to fake Babitch's death by suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. When another corrupt cop is caught red-handed trying to plant a weapon on one of the deceased motorists to justify the shooting, their fellow corrupt cops (
Harvey KeitelHarvey Keitel is an American actor whose latest work is that of Detective Lieutenant Gene Hunt on ABC's crime drama Life on Mars...
,
Robert PatrickRobert Patrick, Jr. is an American actor. Born in Marietta, Georgia, he began his acting career performing at college when attending Bowling Green State University. He dropped out of college when drama class sparked his interest in acting...
,
John SpencerJohn Spencer was an American television actor best known for his role as Leo McGarry, the White House Chief of Staff on the NBC political drama The West Wing.-Early life:...
and
Arthur J. NascarellaArthur J. Nascarella is an American character actor who has appeared in dozens of films, most often playing mobsters and cops. Among his notable film credits include a corrupt cop in Cop Land , a hypocritical ambulance captain in Bringing Out The Dead and a fed-up casino boss in The Cooler; he has...
) fear Babitch will testify to internal affairs about police corruption.
De Niro plays Lt. Moe Tilden, an NYPD
internal affairsThe internal affairs division of a law enforcement agency investigates incidents and plausible suspicions of lawbreaking and professional misconduct attributed to officers on the force...
officerA police officer is a warranted employee of a police force. Police officers are generally responsible for apprehending criminals, maintaining public order, and preventing and detecting crimes...
investigating
MafiaThe Mafia is a Sicilian criminal society which is believed to have emerged in late 19th century Sicily, and the first such society to be referred to as a mafia . It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct...
connected corruption amongst the officers living in Garrison. His jurisdiction ends at the George Washington Bridge, but the men he watches live across that bridge. Smelling a coverup in Babitch's "death", Tilden asks Heflin to provide internal affairs with information on the corrupt cops. Even though they are corrupt and work in a different city, Heflin views them as allies and brothers, able to accomplish what he could not. His reluctance to betray his friends derails the investigation.
Although the cover up at first seems successful, Donlan is told by his PDA President Vincent Lassaro that without a body, the case will not stay dead. Donlan decides that Babitch should be killed. However, they botch the job and in doing so reveal to Heflin that Babitch is actually alive. Heflin is forced to confront the truth about his childhood friends and try to bring them to justice. When he realizes his error he returns to Tilden seeking help, but Tilden rejects his plea, having been forced to completely close the entire investigation by city officials and bureaucrats wishing to avoid bad publicity about the department, as well as the lack of progress in the case due to Heflin's hesitation in helping. Heflin steals several NYPD files on the cases when he is leaving the office. He goes back to his office to look at the files, and realizes the men he knows are all connected to corruption. He returns home to find Figgsy packing to leave, and admonishes him for abandoning him.
Returning to work, Heflin recognizes a man in one of the old case files, and realizes that it is an officer and a friend of Donlan, who works in the prison where Figgsy's partner was killed. The case is Figgsy's partner's murder, which clearly implicates Donlan. Heflin further sees an article claiming that narcotics arrests are down at the precinct where the Garrison cops work at, the 37th precinct. The 37th precinct according to the article has a reputation for violent crime and drug trafficking with local residents alleging that the drug traffic has not stopped, rather that the 3-7's officers turn a blind eye to the drug trade. Heflin deduces that the 3-7's officers have been paid off by the mob to let millions of dollars in drugs run through their precinct. Heflin reviews the mortgage forms for each of the officers living in Garrison and find that all of them come from the same bank, Hudson Federal Savings and Loan. Hudson Federal Savings and Loan is shown to have been investigated on numerous occasions on suspicion of being a mob bank due to its connection with mob boss Toy Torillo and is responsible for 93% of the home loans in Garrison.
Realizing that Figgsy was right about Garrison being a town owned by the mafia, Heflin tells his deputies about his discovery. They react with alarm at the extra-legal sources (stealing case files) on which his ad-hoc investigation is based. Deputy Cindy Betts (
Janeane GarofaloJaneane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist, writer, and former co-host on Air America Radio's The Majority Report...
) tells Heflin she is leaving the department, due to the criminality on all sides. Heflin goes back to Figgsy's house to see if it was a coverup when Figgsy arrives. Figgsy admits that he burned his house down on purpose, but that Monica was not home and the reason it did not look like arson was that he was helped by a bomb squad officer (
Edie FalcoEdith "Edie" Falco is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her lead roles as both Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and the titular character on the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie"-Family:...
).
Following up on the leads he talks to Rose Donlan (
Cathy Moriarty-Career:Her first film credit was Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull in 1980, as Vicki LaMotta, the wife of Robert De Niro's lead character. Her performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared opposite Andrew Dice Clay in the short-lived CBS...
) who gives him Babitch's location. Heflin finds Babitch and takes him to jail, where his second deputy (
Noah EmmerichNoah Nicholas Emmerich is an American film actor who first broke out in the film Beautiful Girls. He was later seen in movies like The Truman Show, Cop Land, Frequency, Love & Sex, Windtalkers, Miracle, and Little Children.-Background:Emmerich was born in New York City to a Jewish family, the son...
) abandons him in fear that the corrupt cops will come to take Babitch by force. Now alone, Heflin attempts to take Babitch to New York to turn in to Tilden, but is ambushed by Donlan and the other corrupt cops, who take Babitch and temporarily deafen Heflin's good ear before leaving him at the station in pain.
The film's climax involves Heflin staggering through Garrison, injured and now totally deaf, knowing they've taken Babitch to Donlan's house. A shootout follows, and Heflin is shot in the back of his shoulder and is saved from potential death when Figgsy arrives, having had a change of heart. The two gradually kill all of the corrupt cops in the house and recover Babitch. They successfully take him to New York, where Tilden accepts Babitch into custody, giving Heflin all of the credit for bringing him in. The film ends with Heflin overlooking the city of New York from across the river with news crews reporting that several indictments have been handed down to mob members, the officers in Garrison, and the PDA all being investigated for their various connections.
Cast
| Actor |
Role |
Sylvester StalloneSylvester Gardenzio Stallone , nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. One of the biggest box office draws in the world from the 1970s to the 1990s, Stallone is an icon of machismo and Hollywood action heroism...
|
Sheriff Freddy Heflin |
Harvey KeitelHarvey Keitel is an American actor whose latest work is that of Detective Lieutenant Gene Hunt on ABC's crime drama Life on Mars...
|
Lt. Ray Donlan |
| Ray Liotta Raymond Liotta is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese...
|
Officer Gary 'Figgsy' Figgis |
Robert De NiroRobert Mario De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director, and producer.De Niro is well-known for his method acting and portrayals of conflicted, troubled characters and for his enduring collaboration with director Martin Scorsese...
|
Lt. Moe Tilden |
| Peter Berg Peter Berg is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is known for directing films such as Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, The Rundown and Hancock.-Biography:...
|
Officer Joey Randone |
| Janeane Garofalo Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist, writer, and former co-host on Air America Radio's The Majority Report...
|
Deputy Cindy Betts |
Robert PatrickRobert Patrick, Jr. is an American actor. Born in Marietta, Georgia, he began his acting career performing at college when attending Bowling Green State University. He dropped out of college when drama class sparked his interest in acting...
|
Officer Jack Rucker |
| Michael Rapaport Michael David Rapaport is an American actor and a comedian. He has acted in more than twenty films since the early 1990s.-Early life:...
|
Officer Murray 'Superboy' Babitch |
| Annabella Sciorra Annabella Sciorra is an American film, television, and stage actress. Sciorra received an Independent Spirit Award nomination as best female lead for the 1989 film True Love, and came to widespread attention in her co-lead role in Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever...
|
Liz Randone |
| Noah Emmerich Noah Nicholas Emmerich is an American film actor who first broke out in the film Beautiful Girls. He was later seen in movies like The Truman Show, Cop Land, Frequency, Love & Sex, Windtalkers, Miracle, and Little Children.-Background:Emmerich was born in New York City to a Jewish family, the son...
|
Deputy Bill Geisler |
| Cathy Moriarty -Career:Her first film credit was Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull in 1980, as Vicki LaMotta, the wife of Robert De Niro's lead character. Her performance earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared opposite Andrew Dice Clay in the short-lived CBS...
|
Rose Donlan |
| John Spencer John Spencer was an American television actor best known for his role as Leo McGarry, the White House Chief of Staff on the NBC political drama The West Wing.-Early life:...
|
Det. Leo Crasky |
Frank VincentFrank Vincent is an American actor and musician. Among other noted roles, he played Phil Leotardo in the HBO series The Sopranos.-Early life:...
|
PDA President Vincent Lassaro |
| Malik Yoba Malik Yoba is an NAACP Image Award-winning American actor and occasional singer. He is known for his co-starring role as NYPD detective J.C. Williams on the popular Fox police drama New York Undercover from 1994 to 1998, and has also appeared in films such as Cool Runnings and Criminal...
|
Det. Carson |
| Arthur J. Nascarella Arthur J. Nascarella is an American character actor who has appeared in dozens of films, most often playing mobsters and cops. Among his notable film credits include a corrupt cop in Cop Land , a hypocritical ambulance captain in Bringing Out The Dead and a fed-up casino boss in The Cooler; he has...
|
Det. Frank LaGunda |
Edie FalcoEdith "Edie" Falco is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her lead roles as both Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and the titular character on the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie"-Family:...
|
Berta |
| Victor Williams Victor L. Williams is an American actor.He is best known as Doug Heffernan's best friend Deacon Palmer on...
|
Russell |
| Paul Calderon Paul Calderon is an American actor.He was born in Puerto Rico. Calderon moved to New York with his family at the age of six, where he grew up on the streets of the Lower East Side and Spanish Harlem. Following some time in college, he enlisted in the United States Army and served overseas as an...
|
Hector the Medic |
| Nick Nolte Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor, film producer and former model.-Early life:Nolte was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Helen , a department store buyer, and Franklin A. Nolte, a farmer's son who worked in irrigation pump sales and was an All-American candidate at Iowa State in...
|
NYPD Detective (Uncredited) |
Method ManClifford Smith , better known by his stage name Method Man or Meth is an American hip hop artist, record producer, actor and member of the hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He took his stage name from the 1979 film The Fearless Young Boxer, also known as Method Man. He is one half of the rap duo...
|
Shondel |
Production
De Niro and Keitel had worked together on three previous films,
Mean StreetsMean Streets is a 1973 drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin. The film stars Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro and David Proval. It was released by Warner Bros. on October 2, 1973...
in 1973,
Taxi DriverTaxi Driver is a film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The movie is set in New York City, soon after the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro and features Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepherd, and a young Jodie Foster...
in 1976 and
Falling in Love-Alberoni Theory:In his socio-psychological theory Francesco Alberoni states that falling in love is a process of the same nature as religious or political conversion.People fall in love when they are ready to change, or to start a new life....
in 1984. Due to the film's modest budget, all of the actors worked for scale. The entire main cast (with the exception of
Robert PatrickRobert Patrick, Jr. is an American actor. Born in Marietta, Georgia, he began his acting career performing at college when attending Bowling Green State University. He dropped out of college when drama class sparked his interest in acting...
), and most of the supporting cast and extras, were born or raised in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
or the
New York metropolitan areaThe New York metropolitan area, also known as Metropolitan New York, Greater New York, or the Tri-State Region, is the most populous metropolitan area in the United States and is also one of the most populous in the world. The metropolitan area is defined by the U.S...
. Numerous supporting actors in
Cop Land would later appear in
The SopranosThe Sopranos is an American television drama series created and produced by David Chase. It premiered on the premium cable network HBO in the United States on January 10, 1999 and ended its original run of six seasons and 86 episodes on June 10, 2007. The show has also been broadcast on A&E in...
, including
Annabella SciorraAnnabella Sciorra is an American film, television, and stage actress. Sciorra received an Independent Spirit Award nomination as best female lead for the 1989 film True Love, and came to widespread attention in her co-lead role in Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever...
,
Edie FalcoEdith "Edie" Falco is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her lead roles as both Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and the titular character on the Showtime series "Nurse Jackie"-Family:...
,
Frank VincentFrank Vincent is an American actor and musician. Among other noted roles, he played Phil Leotardo in the HBO series The Sopranos.-Early life:...
,
Robert PatrickRobert Patrick, Jr. is an American actor. Born in Marietta, Georgia, he began his acting career performing at college when attending Bowling Green State University. He dropped out of college when drama class sparked his interest in acting...
,
Frank PellegrinoFrank Pellegrino is an American actor and restaurateur.Born in East Harlem, Pellegrino has often acted in law and gangster-themed film and television productions. He was a member of an early sixties singing group called "The Holidaes." There is a rare recording of a song called "Never" that appears...
,
John VentimigliaJohn Ventimiglia is an American actor, most famous for his role as Artie Bucco on the HBO television series The Sopranos. He has had parts in feature films such as Cop Land, Jesus' Son, and Mickey Blue Eyes and has appeared in numerous television shows including Law & Order and NYPD Blue...
,
Arthur J. NascarellaArthur J. Nascarella is an American character actor who has appeared in dozens of films, most often playing mobsters and cops. Among his notable film credits include a corrupt cop in Cop Land , a hypocritical ambulance captain in Bringing Out The Dead and a fed-up casino boss in The Cooler; he has...
,
Bruce AltmanBruce Altman is an American film and television actor. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. -Filmography:*Touched by an Angel *Nothing Sacred *Cop Land*Changing Lanes*L.I.E....
,
Janeane GarofaloJaneane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist, writer, and former co-host on Air America Radio's The Majority Report...
,
Paul HermanPaul Herman is an American actor. His appearances in movies include Once Upon a Time in America and Analyze That. He also had a recurring role on The Sopranos as "Beansie" Gaeta, as well as another HBO series, Entourage, as Vincent Chase's accountant, Marvin...
and
Tony SiricoGenaro Anthony "Tony" Sirico, Jr. is an American character actor who is most famous for his role as Paulie Gualtieri in the television series The Sopranos.- Background and career :...
.
Two melancholy songs from
Bruce SpringsteenBruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss", is an American singer-songwriter. He records and tours with the E Street Band...
's 1980 album
The RiverThe River is a double album by Bruce Springsteen released in 1980.-History:The sources of The River go back into earlier parts of Springsteen's recording career...
, "Drive All Night" and "Stolen Car", along with an effective
Howard ShoreHoward Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, orchestrator, conductor and music producer. He was the first band leader on Saturday Night Live. He composed the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the scores to most of David Cronenberg's films...
score, help set the atmosphere.
Reception
Cop Land had its world premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
on August 6, 1997. Some of the film's cast members attended, including Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Annabella Sciorra, Cathy Moriarty, and Michael Rapaport.
Stallone's understated performance against type - he gained considerable weight for the role - was praised by critics and he received the Best Actor award at the
Stockholm International Film FestivalThe Stockholm International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year in the second half of November.-External links:*...
.
Copland was also screened at the 54th
Venice Film FestivalThe Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice,...
in the Midnight line-up. The film was accepted into the main competition at the
Cannes Film FestivalThe Cannes Film Festival , founded in 1946, is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious film festivals. The private festival is held annually at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, in the resort town of Cannes, in the south of France.The 62nd edition started 13 May and ended 24 May 2009...
, but Miramax declined the invitation due to reshoots that were need for the film, including footage of Stallone 40 pounds heavier.
Critical reaction was generally positive. Based on 59 reviews collected from notable publications by review aggregator
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films. The name derives from the historical cliché of throwing tomatoes and other produce at stage performers if a performance was particularly bad.- History :...
, the film holds an overall approval rating of 71%.
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter.He is known for his film review column and for two television programs Sneak Previews and Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel...
gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "There is a rough balance between how long a movie is, how deep it goes, and how much it can achieve. That balance is not found in
Cop Land, and the result is too much movie for the running time". In her review for
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded in 1851 and published in New York City. The largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States, "The Gray Lady"—named for its staid appearance and style—is regarded as a national newspaper of record...
,
Janet MaslinJanet Maslin is an American journalist. She is best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times.-Personal:Maslin graduated from the University of Rochester in 1970, with a B.A. degree and a major in mathematics . She was once married to record producer Jon Landau...
felt that "the strength of
Cop Land is in its hard-edged, novelistic portraits, which pile up furiously during the film's dynamic opening scenes ... Yet if the price of Mangold's casting ambitions is a story that can't, finally, match its marquee value, that value is still inordinately strong. Everywhere the camera turns in this tense and volatile drama, it finds enough interest for a truckload of conventional Hollywood fare. Whatever its limitations,
Cop Land has talent to burn".
Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books and popular culture. Unlike celebrity-focused publications US Weekly, People, and In Touch Weekly, EWs primary concentration is on entertainment...
gave the film a "B-" rating and
Owen GleibermanOwen Gleiberman is an American film critic for Entertainment Weekly, a position he has held since the magazine's launch in 1990. From 1981–89, he worked at the Boston Phoenix....
wrote, "Stallone does a solid, occasionally winning job of going through the motions of shedding his stardom, but the wattage of his personality is turned way down — at times, it's turned down to neutral. And that pretty much describes
Cop Land, too. Dense, meandering, ambitious yet jarringly pulpy, this tale of big-city corruption in small-town America has competence without mood or power — a design but not a vision". In her review for the
Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, "With its redundancy of supporting characters, snarled subplots and poky pace,
Cop Land really might have been better off trading the director for a traffic cop".
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason.The magazine was named after the 1948 Muddy Waters song of the same...
magazine's
Peter TraversPeter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
praised Stallone's performance: "His performance builds slowly but achieves a stunning payoff when Freddy decides to clean up his town ... Freddy awakes to his own potential, and it's exhilarating to watch the character and the actor revive in unison. Nearly down for the count in the movie ring, Stallone isn't just back in the fight. He's a winner". In his review for the
San Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireSan Francisco Chronicle is Northern California's largest newspaper, and one of the largest in the United States, serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area, but distributed throughout...
, Mick LaSalle also liked Stallone's work: "His transformation is more than a matter of weight. He looks spiritually beaten and terribly sad. He looks like a real person, not a cult-of-the-body film star, and he uses the opportunity to deliver his best performance in years".
Home video
Cop Land: Director's Cut was released to
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
in June 2004. Features include the original 112-minute cut, restoration of deleted scenes and scenes extended, addition of New York band
Blue Öyster CultBlue Öyster Cult is an American rock band formed in New York in 1967 and still active in 2009. The group is especially well known for songs including " The Reaper", "Astronomy", "Godzilla", and "Burnin' for You". They have sold over 14 million albums worldwide, including 7 million in the U.S.A...
's "
Burnin' for You"Burnin' for You" is a song by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult from their album Fire of Unknown Origin, released in 1981. It reached number one on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the single spent three weeks at number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart...
" to the soundtrack, and a new audio commentary with James Mangold, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Patrick and producer Cathy Konrad. Also included are a "Shootout Storyboard Sequence" and "The Making of an Urban Western" documentary.
On the DVD, there are two deleted scenes that primarily show the racism in the town of Garrison. One scene involves all the resident police officers chasing down a pair of black motorists and the other shows Heflin's deputy pointing out that the majority of the tickets issued in Garrison go to black motorists on charges that suggest
racial profilingRacial profiling is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a "predictable" manner. It is often confused with the more comprehensive Offender Profiling and has been...
. The movie itself implies a racist undercurrent in Garrison as all the NYPD officers who live there are White, a black Internal Affairs Detective Carson implies that the cops who live in Garrison are racist to a black patrolman named Russell who is at the scene of the bridge shootout, a black couple who drives through Garrison are unjustly given a ticket by one of Heflin's deputies, and blacks are implied by the officers in different ways as "certain people" who are scared of Garrison and as an "outside element" that would present a crime problem to Garrison.
Legacy
Stallone stated on the
Opie and Anthony Show in 2008 that the film "hurt" his career, and that he had trouble getting roles for eight years, due to the film's failure and the mix of views on whether he was leaving action movies for more character-driven content. Stallone has described this as "the beginning of the end, for about eight years".
External links
- Cop Land at the Internet Movie Database
The Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, video games, and most recently, fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media...
- Cop Landat the Rottentomatoes
- Cop Landat the Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...