Cop Land was all that I expected it to be. The well-written cop drama that takes place in a New Jersey town south of the Big Apple had an added tinge of organized crime, as opposed to the regular Cops-and-Robbers routine that I was used to.
In Cop Land Sylvester Stallone plays a slow, droopy sheriff of Garrison, New Jersey (Pop 1,800), named Freddy Heflin. Because of an accident in his childhood that made him deaf in one ear, he could not make his dream of becoming one of New York's Finest come true. So he has to settle for sheriff in this small town already run by cops. You see, Garrison was founded by a corrupt cop named Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel) to be a sort a haven for cops, a "Cop Land," that he could run.
Problems arise when Donlan's nephew Murray (Michael Rapaport), also a cop, unintentionally kills two young teenagers who hit his car during a joyride. Donlan, concerned about his reputation, manages to fake Murray's death in order to keep his nemesis, an agent in IA (Internal Affairs) named Tilden (played by Robert De Niro) out of his hair. Tilden smells a cover-up and when he begins to get too close to the truth, the Garrison who helped Murray cops try to kill him off to save their own skins.
When Freddy finally learns of this, he thinks it's up to him to bring out justice. The problem is, as the sheriff of Cop Land who "sports the authority of a traffic cop," he gets no respect.
Director James Mangold did a good job of casting De Niro and Keitel, who put a certain welcome energy to each scene they were in. Stallone, who put on 40 lbs for this role, played an enjoyable, ill-witted character. I was also very surprised about how well he was able to play a non-action role, but only one actor in Hollywood could stagger down the street, bleeding and holding a shotgun as well as he did :)
-Ethan Kaplan
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8/18/97