Cop Land (DVD)

In 1997, director James Mangold assembled some of the finest gangaster movie stars along with some current hot property to give us the star studded Cop Land in the hope that it would prove to be one of the biggest and best films of the 1990s, if not further reaching. What we got was a strange foray into police corruption and a few suspect performances. In a small New Jersey suburban community, partially deaf Sheriff Freddy Heflin is slow yet safe. However, he stumbles across a corruption deep withint he community involving some of the New York police that live there, and further investigation leads to something deeper and more sinister than he predicted. As ...  Read the complete review

For those of you who thought that Sly Stallone was a monosyllabic and wooden plain old action hero actor, think again! Sly's performance in this film is probably one of his best performances to date, and by any actor, and I think he won or atleast got nominated for an award in this film. The film's set somewhere in New Jersey, some small town where a number of local law enforcers/cops came to settle and raise their families - hence it's cop land; a place where these cops are unmonitored by a higher governing body. And this freedom leads to some corrupt abusage of powers amongst a number of them. The story centres around a young officer who after a ...  Read the complete review

This is a Sylvester Stallone film unlike any other Stallone film. Whilst the embarrasingly wooden actor takes the lead role, it's not all about his silliness, with a stunning supporting cast including Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel keeping things interesting. The story is about Freddy Helfin (Stallone) who stars as a morally incorruptible local sherrif out to stop corruption. The problem is, his whole town turns out to be fronted by the mob in a one man vs the world adventure. The film is fairly predictable, and has a 'made for TV' feel to the editing and photography. There's something very 'average drama' about the plot, perhaps the way it uses ...  Read the complete review

As we all know, the great thing about DVD is that the actual disc itself will never degrade in quality over time (unlike VHS) and so lends itself perfectly for building up that collection of films you love. There haven’t been all that many releases on DVD of late that have grabbed my attention, so instead I’m buying copies of older films that I love – and one of these is the Sylvester Stallone vehicle ‘Cop Land’. Now, I know what you’re thinking – ‘Sylvester Stallone? Surely buying a movie with him in would be a terrible, terrible move’ and normally I might agree with you – but on this ...  Read the complete review

Finally, a reunion with all of the Scorsese greats, substituting Stallone for Pesci. A group of New York City transit cops have stablished a haven in a small town across the GWB, Garrison, New Jersey. De Niro, an Internal Affairs officer, realizes what is going on and consults the local police chief(Stallone). This slow, overweight cop, begins to realize this conspiracy, but has already turned down the Internal Affairs offer. With a bloody conclusion, Stallone ends this haven for New York City transit cops, and overcomes his own boundaries. Incredible performances, especially Keitel's intensity. De Niro and Keitel are incredible together, and Ray Liotta is as good as ...  Read the complete review