Cop Land

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Cop Land

Cop Land promotional poster
Directed by James Mangold
Produced by Cathy Konrad
Ezra Swerdlow
Cary Woods
Written by James Mangold
Starring Sylvester Stallone
Harvey Keitel
Ray Liotta
Robert De Niro
Peter Berg
Janeane Garofalo
Robert Patrick
Michael Rapaport
Annabella Sciorra
Music by Howard Shore
Cinematography Eric Alan Edwards
Editing by Craig McKay
Distributed by Miramax Films
Release dates
  • August 15, 1997 (1997-08-15)
Running time 104 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $15 million
Box office $44,862,187 (US-Canada)

Cop Land is a 1997 American crime drama film written and directed by James Mangold. It features an ensemble cast featuring Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Rapaport, Robert Patrick, Peter Berg, Annabella Sciorra, Cathy Moriarty, Arthur Nascarella, and John Spencer.

The story follows a sheriff in a rural town dominated by corrupt city cops who has acquiesced to their ways of running things for ten years. Their corruption grows until he can no longer allow himself to stand by and do nothing. With little evidence, he must find a young cop who can testify against the city officers and help bring them to justice. The city cops are determined to find him first and kill him.

Critics gave the film generally positive reviews and it has a 73% "fresh" rating at RottenTomatoes.com, based on 62 reviews.[1]

Plot

Set in the town of Garrison, New Jersey,[2] located across the Hudson River from New York City, a large number of residents are NYPD Officers. Local sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) is secretly in love with Liz Randone (Annabella Sciorra) whose life he saved in a car accident when they were young. Her rescue cost him the hearing in one ear and made him ineligible to become a New York City cop, as so many of his peers did, including Liz's abusive and unfaithful husband Joey Randone (Berg).

One night, Murray "Superboy" Babitch (Rapaport), nephew of Lt. Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel), is driving across the George Washington Bridge when his car is sideswiped by a car occupied by couple of African-American teens. He attempts to force them to pull over. The passenger points what Ray thinks is a weapon at him and then the front tire of his car goes flat. Believing they have fired at him, Babitch shoots back and in an ensuing accident, the teens are killed. Jack Rucker (Robert Patrick) removes the steering wheel lock that Babitch mistook for a weapon from the hands of one of the dead teens and is caught trying to plant a weapon in their vehicle to justify the shooting. Worried about the repercussions on his career of having shot unarmed black teens, Babitch is persuaded by Donlan to fake his suicide, and Ray pretends Babitch has jumped off the bridge. Other corrupt police officers, including Detective Leo Crasky (Spencer) and Frank Lagonda (Arthur Nascarella), fear Babitch will resurface and, to protect himself against charges in the black teen's death, testify about their corruption to Internal Affairs.

Internal Affairs investigator Lt. Moe Tilden (De Niro) asks mild-mannered half-deaf sheriff Heflin to provide information on the corrupt cops who live in his town. Heflin is intimidated by the New York cops and is reluctant to betray them, derailing Tilden's investigation. Within the next two weeks superiors in the department, related to the corrupt cops, order Tilden to shut down the investigation.

Although the Babitch cover-up appears to be initially successful, Ray is told by Patrolmen's Defense Association President Vincent Lassaro (Vincent) that without a body, the case will not stay cold. Ray reluctantly decides that his nephew must be killed. Babitch is tipped off by his aunt Rose (Cathy Moriarty) and escapes. He goes to Freddy's house looking for help, but when he sees Freddy's friend (and fellow NYPD cop) Gary "Figgsy" Figgis (Ray Liotta), he flees. During the same evening, Joey Randone gets into a fight with a suspect and is thrown over the edge of the building. Clinging to an aerial and calling for help, Donlan sees him but fails to render assistance in revenge for his affair with Ray's wife. By the time the cops get to the roof, Randone has fallen to his death.

When Freddy realizes his mistake, he visits Tilden and is angrily told that the case was blown by his failure to co-operate sooner. As he leaves, Freddy sees a number of NYPD case files on the corrupt cops and steals them. Back in his office, he studies the files and realizes the extent of his friends' corruption. Deputy Cindy Betts (Janeane Garofalo) decides to leave Garrison, frustrated by the New York cops having turned the town into their own personal fiefdom. Freddy returns home to find Figgsy packing to leave, not wanting to be further involved. Freddy later finds out that Figgsy burned down his house for the insurance money, accidentally killing his crack-addicted girlfriend Monica (Mel Gorham). Heflin convinces Rose to reveal where Babitch is hiding. Heflin takes Babitch to Garrison's jail. Heflin encourages Deputy Bill Geisler (Noah Emmerich), who is nervous about protecting Babitch, to go home and take care of his pregnant wife. At the carnival, Heflin shows his shooting accuracy to Rucker, putting five pellets dead center in the red star.

Heflin attempts to take Babitch to New York to turn over to Tilden, but Lagonda, Donlan and Rucker ambush him. Rucker fires a gun next to Freddy's good ear, deafening and disabling him, and take Babitch. Heflin knows that Donlan is taking Babitch to his house and is planning to kill him. Heflin follows them to and a shootout follows. Heflin kills Jack and Frank. Heflin is then shot in the shoulder by Leo Crasky, but is saved by the arrival of Figgsy, who kills Crasky. Heflin and Figgsy continue into the house where Babitch is trying to escape through a window. Ray sneaks up behind Heflin, but before he can fire, Figgsy shoots at Donlan but misses. Barely hearing the shot, Heflin turns and fatally shoots Donlan. As Donlan lies dying on the floor, he mutters obscenities at Freddy, to which Heflin replies simply; "I can't hear you, Ray."

Figgsy and Heflin take Babitch to New York City and to Internal Affairs. After the scandal has been investigated and indictments handed down, Heflin, who has recovered hearing in his good ear, is looking at the New York skyline from across the Hudson River. Deputy Geisler notifies him about a jack-knifed truck and Freddy goes back to work.

Cast

Production

All of the actors worked for scale.

The movie is based on Mangold's hometown Washingtonville, New York. He grew up in a development called Worley Heights, where many of the residents were NYPD cops.[citation needed] However, Edgewater, New Jersey was the principal shooting location.[3]

Garrison, New Jersey is a fictional town. There are no "municipal sheriff" departments in New Jersey. The only sheriff's departments in New Jersey are county sheriff's departments.

Reception

Cop Land had its world premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City on August 6, 1997. Some of the film's cast members attended, including Stallone, Keitel, Liotta, Sciorra, Moriarty and Rapaport.[4]

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 Festival. Cop Land was also screened at the 54th Venice Film Festival in the Midnight line-up.[5] Earlier in May 1997, the film was accepted into the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, but Miramax declined the invitation due to re-shoots that were needed for the film, including footage of Stallone 40 pounds heavier.[6]

Critical reaction was generally positive. Based on 62 reviews collected from notable publications by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an overall approval rating of 73%.[7] Roger Ebert 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".[8] On the other hand, Gene Siskel praised the movie, especially the screenplay, "One to be savored."

In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin 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".[9]

Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B-" rating and Owen Gleiberman 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".[10] 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".[11] Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers 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".[12] In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, 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".[13]

Post-release reaction

Unlike 1991's Oscar and 1992's Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Stallone's previous high-profile attempts at branching out of the one-dimensional action star roles, both of which ultimately ended up commercially unsuccessful, critically panned, and often ridiculed, Cop Land with its star-studded heavyweight ensemble cast was met with high expectations as a multifaceted story based around corruption on the New York City police force. Additionally, it was to show Stallone in a completely different light, both physically (his 40 lb weight gain got a lot of press coverage) as well as artistically by letting him showcase his acting skills. And while the film posted a solid box-office intake ($44.8 million domestically), got good reviews, and Stallone received positive critical notices for his performance as a demure small-town sheriff, in 2008 the actor stated on the Opie and Anthony Show that Cop Land "hurt" his career and that he had trouble getting roles for eight years, due to the film's failure to reach the high expectations set for it 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".[14]

In 2011, for Cop Land's release on Blu-ray, the film's writer and director James Mangold commented on the film's reception: "The movie was under so much pressure to be America's next Pulp Fiction. But it's such a dark and sad tale, less jazzy and more of a kind of morality tale. It ends in a dark place. The star value got so high, and Miramax wanted the grosses to be so high. When it came out, a lot of daggers were out for Sly. He had made a bunch of shittier moves, he’s the first to admit, that weren't aimed for the highest result each time out".[15]

Soundtrack

Cop Land: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture
Soundtrack album by Howard Shore
Released 1997
Genre Soundtrack
Length 40:11
Label Miramax Motion picture

The film's soundtrack features two songs from Bruce Springsteen's 1980 album The River; "Drive All Night" and "Stolen Car", as well as songs by other artists, and an original score from Howard Shore.

The score by Howard Shore was performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra and released as Cop Land: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture in 1997. The soundtrack was released on CD contained twelve tracks with a runtime of 40:11 minutes.[16][17]

All music composed by Howard Shore.
Track listing
No. Title Length
1. "All Dressed Up In Blue"   4:18
2. "Garrison, NJ"   1:44
3. "Yellow Betray Blue"   3:31
4. "Local Boy Saves Drowning Teen"   3:03
5. "Mashed Potatoes Don't Mean Gravy"   2:21
6. "The Sheriff Of Cop Land"   2:37
7. "Pool Of Crimson"   4:37
8. "The Diagonal Rule"   4:25
9. "Across The River"   4:58
10. "Big Blue Pow Wow"   2:28
11. "Without Looking At The Cards"   4:06
12. "One Police Plaza"   2:03
Total length:
 40:11

Home video

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, addition of New York band Blue Öyster Cult's "Burnin' for You" 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 profiling.

References

  1. ↑ "Cop Land". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 13 February 2013. 
  2. ↑ IMDB Fictional setting
  3. ↑ The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations Cop Land in Edgewater
  4. ↑ Roman, Monica (August 14, 1997). "A party in Cop land". Variety. p. 27. 
  5. ↑ Rooney, David (August 15, 1997). "Cop Land replaces Empire in lineup". Variety. p. 39. 
  6. ↑ Busch, Anita M (May 26, 1997 – June 1, 1997). "He Ain't Heavy ... At Least for the Reshoot". Variety. p. 5. 
  7. ↑ "Cop Land - Rotten Tomatoes". Uk.rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 2013-05-17. 
  8. ↑ Ebert, Roger (August 15, 1997). "Cop Land". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
  9. ↑ Maslin, Janet (August 15, 1997). "Cop Land: Sly Holds His Own". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
  10. ↑ Gleiberman, Owen (August 15, 1997). "Cop Land". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
  11. ↑ Kempley, Rita (August 15, 1997). "Cop Land: No Muscle". Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
  12. ↑ Travers, Peter (December 8, 2000). "Cop Land". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
  13. ↑ LaSalle, Mick (August 15, 1997). "Good Cop Bad Cop". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-09-22. 
  14. ↑ Opie and Anthony Show, 1/17/08, Stallone interview.
  15. ↑ ‘Cop Land’ Director James Mangold: When Stallone Swapped Guns for a Gut;Andrew Breitbart Presents: Big Hollywood, 2 November 2011
  16. ↑ "Cop Land Soundtrack (1997)". Moviemusic.com. 1997-08-12. Retrieved 2013-05-17. 
  17. ↑ "Cop Land Soundtrack CD Album". Cduniverse.com. 2006-01-24. Retrieved 2013-05-17. 

External links

Films directed by James Mangold
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