The Star-Studded Cast Is Not The Best Thing About Cop Land.

powermandan

Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Robert Patrick, Michael Rappaport, Noah Emmerich, Janeane Garofalo, John Spencer, Frank Vincent, and Peter Berg. Here are all of the well-known stars in the riveting thriller, Cop Land. If you don't know their names, you sure will know their faces. Movies with this many stars are bound to be good, and this follows that rule. But the many stars is just icing on the cake.

Many people dissed Cop Land for having too many subplots and the regular plot to be too complex. Tell me, isn't that what made LA Confidential so great? Isn't that why The Matrix was a sci-fi masterpiece? Wasn't that Hitchcock's favourite thing to do? Let me say: IT WAS! The general story is a half-deaf Sheriff in a New Jersey suburb named Freddy Heflin (Stallone), is always respected by his peers and residents of the town which mostly consist of NYC cops. When Officer Ray Donlan's (Keitel) nephew, Murray "Superboy" Babitch (Rappaport) kills ignorant speeders and commits suicide, Internal Affairs' Moe Tilden (De Niro) assigns Freddy to the case as everybody knows the suicide is a hoax. Freddy doesn't think much of it, until he discovers the truth about his friends and the whole town. Freddy wants to uphold the law, but is fairly warned by his loyal, and somewhat crooked friend, Gary (Liotta). I know that what my summarization is long, but it is no different than any movie I mentioned earlier in this review.

Cop Land is Sylvester Stallone's comeback performance. He never left, he just got on a string of dumb action movies and was losing touch in the later Rocky and Rambo movies. Before Cobra, everybody knew Stallone to be a great actor. The days of Paradise Alley, FIST, Rocky, and Lords of Flatbush proved that Stallone was destined to greatness. He did get popularity and lots of movies, but poor reception after becoming a sellout. Cop Land was to show the world that Stallone has not lost his touch in acting, and that he can still act like he did twenty years earlier. Of course Rocky is his best role and performance, but his role as Freddy Heflin in Cop Land is right behind it. Nobody could have played Freddy Heflin better. There's no wisecracks, or cheesy looks, or anything that Stallone usually has. He is a confused and determined cop whose life is in great danger. In fact, he was so good, he deserved an Oscar nomination. 1997 was a very competitive year for movies, but I'm saying that he deserved a nomination. A nomination for acting's greatest prize is almost as good as the actual win.

4/4

score 10/10

powermandan 24 January 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3169422/