Cop Land

”Cop Land” conforms to the traditional western film model 1A: a lone good man stands up and fights a gang of bad guys, in this case policemen.
”Cop Land” is a New Jersey suburb, just outside New York. Here the police and firemen who work in New York have created their own little paradise that is immune to the crime rampant in the rest of the city. But, Harvey Keitel's police chief is nothing short of a dictator, who makes his own laws and has no qualms about killing a colleague who doesn't obey orders, or becomes uncomfortable.
Like a quiet and overweight bumble bee - too heavy to fly, and too nice to shoot - sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) buzzes around in this idyllic place. He takes care of lost toys, and tries to figure out who's been putting their garbage in the wrong spot. His dream of becoming a cop was never fulfilled, since he went deaf at a young age. His love Liz (Annabella Sciorra) has married another cop, played by Ray Liotta. Heflin comes across as a bit of a wimp and everyone takes him for an idiot, which turns out to be a fatal mistake.
Mangold builds up action and suspense in the same way Zinneman does in ”High Noon.” Therefore the film is full of fear and expectation for how Keitel's police gang will be stopped. Mangold is not interested in stereotypes. Each of his cops has depth and character, and the roles are often very different from anything the actors have done before. Stallone gained 20 kg for the film. An accomplishment well on a par with Robert de Niro's efforts when he played the boxer Jake LaMotta in ”Raging Bull.”
One should perhaps not, however, expect to find much social criticism in Mangold. That the police are corrupt is rather a necessity for the script. On the other hand there is a clear inclination toward transforming a classic Hollywood star into an everyday guy. America doesn't need any heroes anymore - it became
clear when Stallone accepted the role of Freddy Heflin, that Rambo had been retired. Mangold has dusted off an old genre and made a contemporary western that works.
Peter Loewe

Medverkande
Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Harvey Keitel, Michael Rapaport: Producent
Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein: Manus
James Mangold novel:Mike McMary: Foto
Eric Edwards: Musik
Howard Shore: Talat språk
English