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July 06, 2002

Copland

Corrupt Cops brought to book by Sly

Sylvester Stallone famously did this film to improve his acting credentials after a career of high grunting action flicks. Does he succeeed, well, almost. He wanders around looking moody most of the time, and is good at that, but has to make an impassioned speech at one point which really doesn't work. Play to your strengths Sly! He plays the sherrif of a small town over the river from New York where lots of cops live to get away from the crime and grime of the city. But most of these cops bought their houses with mob money they took while looking the other way. One of these cops messes up and shoots two black kids in a car on the George Washington bridge, and is abviously going to get arrested himself. Harvey Keitel is on the scene and fakes the young cop jumping from the bridge and smuggles him to Stallone's town to hide out; the corrupt cops don't want the youngster in prison where he might talk and incriminate them.

Robert De Niro works for Internal Affairs and is investigating Keitel and his cronies. He goes to Stallone to try and get him to help. Stallone is too indecisive until he discovers that the young cop is still alive and that Keitel is actually trying to kill him. In the climax Stallone can't resist taking on the cop gang almost single handed in a shoot-out where they all get killed and he gets shot in the shoulder and just shrugs it off.

There is a subplot about Stallone saving a girl from drowning and losing the hearing in one ear; this is merely a device to explain why he is just a small town sherrif and not a NY Cop and an excuse for the the presence of the only real female character, Anabella Sciorra.

It's a fairly standard film about police corruption, well worth watching, but not spectacular. Watch out for Robert Patrick's silly moustache!

AE0

Posted by se71 at July 6, 2002 11:25 AM

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