Long Before 'Indiana Jones,' James Mangold Made One of the Great '90s Crime Thrillers
"Two kinds of people in this world, pinball people and video game people." Sylvester Stallone's Sheriff Freddy Heflin is the latter, at least according to Ray Liotta's morally conflicted Officer Garry "Figgsy" Figgis. Cop Land is one of the 1990s' most haunting cop thrillers in a decade littered with compelling examples. This film, which includes an impressive cast of stars and excellent offbeat character actors, was an opportunity for director James Mangold to exhibit his chops for capturing the complexities of multidimensional characters against an urban mirror. Cop Land was his sophomore feature and it's clear the director always had a penchant for overseeing talented ensembles. Complimented by a supremely effective score and an at-times mournful mood, Cop Land is surprising in its heaviness and melancholic undercurrent. Never less than absorbing, the film is also a fine example of slow-percolating suspense as Stallone's submissive sheriff builds up sufficient courage to take on the formidable cadre of crooked cops that inhabit Garrison, New Jersey: An across-the-river haven for police families a stone's throw from George Washington Bridge with the New York City skyline shimmering in the background.
With the versatile Mangold's latest feature, Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny, hitting theaters this week, now's the perfect time to look back at the director's great crime thriller.
'Cop Land' Has Many Memorable Characters Played by a Talented Cast
Sylvester Stallone plays against-type as the small-town sheriff in awe of the cops he's charged with observing by Internal Affairs Lieutenant Moe Tilden (Robert De Niro). He plays Heflin quietly, as a man battered down by having to settle for second best in life as a result of compounding misfortune and spending many of his adult years lovelorn. It's a credible performance and his well-meaning character's decision to ultimately blaze his own path of justice after finally gathering the required chutzpah makes for an exciting third act. His Freddy Heflin is introduced as a nonchalant lawman, wandering from one innocuous misdemeanor to another in between a whole lot of inactivity. Surrounded by an entire community of officers of various ranks who have a virtual monopoly on the town, Heflin is first portrayed as a kind of passive observer, but one who springs to life when instilled with renewed vigor. The collection of cops is led by Harvey Keitel's Ray Donlan — a veteran official afforded messianic devotion by many of the other lawmen that surround him.
And those others are played by actors who each bring their own unique brand of menace to the screen. From the darkly comic to the downright calculating, each and every character has their own unique story. Heflin suffers from an aural impairment as a result of saving a person from drowning as a youth. His chances of joining the NYPD were inhibited by the injury. His gung-ho deputies, played by Noah Emmerich and Janeane Garofalo, are charged with their own sense of purpose despite at times feeling completely overridden by the cop residents of the town. Donlan's troupe is all brought to life magnetically by its cast. Robert Patrick's Officer Jack Rucker is ruthless in his own sense of perceived untouchability, slavishly devoted to Donlan. Peter Berg's icy Randone is clearly just as volatile away from work as he is on duty and Michael Rapaport's Murray "Superboy" Babitch's naivete is what sets the film's series of events into motion. Involved in a bridge collision that could easily have been avoided resulting in the death of two youths, Donlan orchestrates Babitch's false death to cover up any wrongdoing — but it quickly backfires when De Niro's Tilden comes sniffing. Ray Liotta's Figgis is perhaps the most interesting of them all. With friction starting to grow between him and Donlan's posse, he begins to shift from being Heflin's casual bar chum to unlikely confidante. He also gets a lot of the flick's most memorable lines, "Being right isn't a bulletproof vest, Freddy!" Wanting to escape his past and turn a corner in his life, his plans ultimately get the better of him.
James Mangold's Direction Makes 'Cop Land' a Classic Neo-Noir
To add polish to his vision and elevate the depth of Cop Land, Mangold focuses on character first and foremost, situating them in the midst of a pulsating moral dilemma. His treatment of the script is decidedly on-point, giving ample breathing room for the actors to bring each character to life. The confrontations are spare and gripping, and the interstitial musings are just as riveting (such as the firebrand secret conversations in dim offices or dingy bars). The way he shifts from wide shots to close-ups (while toying with the audio) towards the end as a way of escalating the drama hearkens back to some of the classic Westerns of the day. There's an innate nail-biting tension to the buildup as much as the ultimate showdown which calls back to movies such as Last Train from Gun Hill. It's hardly a wonder the script and the proficiency of the director courted such high-caliber actors for the picture.
The film opens via aerial shots of New York City together with narration delivered by the unmistakable De Niro as Tilden. It's a richly atmospheric introduction to the world Mangold creates, and the use of muted lighting lends a dusky, brooding quality to the overall aesthetic central to some of the classics of the genre. At other times, the visual treatment offers a forlorn quality to sequences, apropos of the inherent sadness of its main character. Heflin is blinded with purpose by the film's end but for much of the drama's duration, he is caught in a kind of moral limbo. He yearns to be with the wife of Berg's Scardone (Annabella Sciorra), having loved her for years, while torn between the request of Tilden and his admiration for Donlan's power. His internal dilemma is a simple but enthralling counterweight for the action, and for the gallery of richly performed characters to come to life. There are fireworks aplenty in Cop Land, but it's also a film heavy on contemplation.
'Cop Land' Is a Must-See for Fans of Thoughtful Dramas and Captivating Procedural Thrillers
In Cop Land, James Mangold is able to wring something truly thoughtful out of a familiar and engaging tale — his film taps into what emotion can do a person in the face of trying circumstances. Not a minute goes to waste in his picture; it's a brisk, well-engineered vehicle that gets from A to B stylishly. A very firm grasp of form is on show, and the film soars off the back of its terrific cast and genuinely stirring score courtesy of Howard Shore. There's an odd mixture of subdued triumph and dulled hope in the music and it works beautifully.
From the '90s until the 2000s, there have been many films of a similar ilk loosed upon the cinema-going world, and Cop Land ought to be held in similarly high regard for the way it counterbalances its resonance with visceral thrills. From Infernal Affairs to The Departed,Cop Land should occupy a similar spot in the pantheon when it comes to elegantly made genre pictures with top-notch ensembles. Before racing to the nearest theater to behold the final curtain for one of cinema's most enduring Hollywood heroes in Indiana Jones, seek out director Mangold's second feature, for it is readily quotable, contains a host of memorable performances, and emphatically demonstrates the power of a strong character arc. Backlit all the while by a roving camera that knows how to capture every moment fully, from the incendiary to the subtly tense.
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