Cop Land
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| Cop Land | |
|---|---|
 Copland promotional poster |
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| Directed by | James Mangold |
| Written by | James Mangold |
| Starring | Sylvester Stallone Harvey Keitel Ray Liotta Robert De Niro Peter Berg Janeane Garofalo Annabella Sciorra Robert Patrick Michael Rapaport John Spencer Arthur J. Nascarella |
| Music by | Howard Shore |
| Release date(s) | August 15, 1997 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 104 min / USA:116 min (director's cut) |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Cop Land (1997) is an American dramatic film, written and directed by James Mangold, with an all-star cast, including Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, and Harvey Keitel. Its themes center on corruption, lost dreams, and personal resolve.
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[edit] Story
The film takes place in fictional Garrison, New Jersey, a small town across the Hudson River from New York near the George Washington Bridge where a large number of residents are New York City Police Department officers. Stallone plays the quiet Freddy Heflin, the hearing-impaired sheriff of Garrison, who admires his friends who are cops. Helfin 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 being wielded by corrupt NYPD cops, primarily headed by Ray Donlan (Keitel), who constantly reminds Freddy 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 Sciorra), whom Freddy saved from drowning at the cost of his hearing, and who dumped him for a dysfunctional marriage with another cop, Randone (Peter Berg). Matters are further complicated by "Figgsy" (Liotta), another corrupt NYPD officer but a friend of Freddy's and someone who is at a crossroads and is trying to change and do the right thing. Figgsy also has an ongoing rift with Randone.
De Niro plays Lt. Moe Tilden, an NYPD internal affairs officer, investigating Mafia-connected corruption among the officers living in Garrison. His jurisdiction ends at the George Washington Bridge, but the men he watches live across that bridge. His investigation gets a break when one of the cops, Murray "Superboy" Babitch (Michael Rapaport), kills two unarmed motorists and a fellow corrupt cop is caught red-handed trying to plant a weapon on the dead man to justify the shooting. His fellow corrupt cops (Keitel, Robert Patrick, John Spencer and Arthur J. Nascarella) fear he will testify to Internal Affairs about police corruption, so they fake his death and put him in hiding.
Tilden asks Heflin to provide Internal Affairs with information on the corrupt cops. Even though they are corrupt and work in a different city, Freddy views them as fellows and brothers, able to accomplish what he could not, and his reluctance to betray his friends derails the investigation. When Freddy finds that Babitch is alive (and that Donlan, who is not afraid to see a friend or someone close to him go down in order to protect his arrangements, now wants him dead), Freddy is forced to confront the truth about his childhood friends and must try and bring them to justice. Ultimately, Freddy is faced with the decision between giving his life to protect his friends whom he greatly admires, or upholding the law and turning in his friends.
[edit] Production
De Niro and Keitel had worked together on two previous films, Mean Streets in 1973 and Taxi Driver in 1976. Due to the film's modest budget, all of the actors worked for scale. The entire main cast (with the exception of Robert Patrick), and most of the supporting cast and extras, were born or raised in New York City or the New York metropolitan area. Numerous supporting actors in Cop Land would later appear in The Sopranos, including Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Frank Vincent, Robert Patrick, Frank Pellegrino, John Ventimiglia, Arthur J. Nascarella, and Tony Sirico.
Two melancholy songs from Bruce Springsteen's The River album, along with an effective Howard Shore score, help set the atmosphere.
[edit] Reception
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 Film Festival.
Despite critical praise for the film and Stallone's acting, and opening at number one, the film's 45 million dollar domestic gross (65 million in 2006 dollars) was portrayed as a disappointment. However, in retrospect, the film's 25 million dollar budget made the take a fine return, especially considering the dark content and tone. Since then, the film has found a second life on cable television and home video and DVD and is considered to be one of Stallone's best performances and an important film in Mangold's portfolio.
Cop Land was accepted into the main competition at Cannes, but Miramax declined the invitation.
Cop Land: Director's Cut was released to DVD in June 2004. Features include the original 112-minute cut, restoration of deleted scenes and scenes extended, a new audio commentary with James Mangold, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Patrick and producer Cathy Konrad. Also included are deleted scenes with audio commentary, a "Shootout Storyboard Sequence" and "The Making of an Urban Western" documentary.
[edit] External links
- Cop Land at the Internet Movie Database
- Cop Landat the Rottentomatoes
- Cop Landat the Metacritic
