Cop (1988, Dir. James B. Harris)
Synopsis:
Responding to an anonymous phone call, LAPD Detective Sgt. Lloyd Hopkins (James Woods) discovers the body of a woman who has been brutally murdered. A letter from the killer, sent to the dead woman’s post office box the day she was murdered, suggests to Hopkins that he might be dealing with a serial killer. With the body count rising and unable to convince anyone in the police department except his friend and mentor Dutch (Charles Durning), Hopkins’ pursuit of the killer becomes a personal vendetta.
Before he received acclaim for his complex and multi character period crime novels, such as The Black Dahlia and LA Confidential, James Ellroy’s first major success came with a trio of contemporary thrillers featuring the brilliant but disturbed Detective Sgt. Lloyd Hopkins, who is often every bit as dangerous as the criminals he’s trying to stop. This film, adapted and directed by Harris, Stanley Kubrick’s producing partner on The Killing, Paths Of Glory and Lolita, is based on the first of those novels, Blood On The Moon. Though I remember seeing the film-tie in version of the novel in my local WH Smiths around the time of its release, I only watched the film a decade later, after I’d made the Ellroy connection and a magazine had included it in its list of underrated downbeat crime movies.
Even though its plot isn’t as complex as that of some of Ellroy’s later novels, it still requires a fair amount of attention from the viewer to follow the plot. Despite Ellroy’s dislike for the film, Harris does a decent job of adapting the book to the screen, with chunks of dialogue being lifted word for word (the fabulous scene between Hopkins and his young daughter, for example) even if certain aspects (Hopkins’ strained family life, the killer and Hopkins also both being victims of sexual assault, Hopkins killing a fellow National Guardsman during the Watts Riots) are diluted or removed entirely and the final showdown somehow seems a little rushed. The film compensates for these minor shortcomings by keeping the book’s ending (this is truly one of the most spectacularly dark thriller endings of the 80s, reminiscent of some of De Palma’s bleakest) and a fantastically manic performance from Woods (who also co-produced the film), that is up there with the very best work of his entire career, showcasing his incredible range as an actor (from sweaty panic to sneering sarcasm to nervous rage to gleeful insanity) in a single performance. It’s one of the few movies in his extensive filmography, other than perhaps Once Upon A Time In America or the equally underrated Best Seller, to really do so. Equally, a great deal of the film also relies on shots of Woods thinking – the great scene of Hopkins in Delbert Haines’ apartment when he notices the hidden microphone for example – so there’s plenty of subtlety within his performance as well. In fact, Woods is so perfect as Hopkins that if you read the books after seeing the film (as I did) you might find it hard not to imagine Woods delivering the lines.
Despite him dominating the film there are plenty of other great performances, most notably Charles Durning as Hopkins‘ long suffering mentor; Lesley Anne Warren, who manages to make quite a schizophrenic character seem believable and even sympathetic and Charles Haid as the policeman who has an unwitting connection to the killer. The film also has a great score from Michael Colombier, mixing ambient synth pads, eerie percussion and mournful saxophone in a way that recalls Trevor Jones‘ score for Angel Heart.
Like much of Ellroy’s work, it’s a very masculine story with few female characters and those few that are there, are mostly portrayed as victims. The film’s attitude to both women and homosexuals is extremely dated when viewed today; but then this is now as much a period film as LA Confidential is and it’s worth remembering that this warts and all version of LA could have been just as accurate at the time it was made. Like the best police procedurals, the scenes of the police working has that tang of authenticity that adds a layer of believablity to it all. I particularly love Woods’ (possibly ad-libed) line to a suspect sitting on a chair, as he walks out the door: „You back again?“ – a wonderful, seemingly off-the-cuff moment that lifts the scene into something above the standard police precinct dialogue we’ve heard in so many other movies.
Ultimately, this is a better than average thriller which manages several surprises during its relatively tight 110 minute running time, with a pace that enables it to (mostly) brush over its more clichéd plot points. If nothing else, it deserves to be better appreciated if only for Woods’ incredible performance and that killer ending.
