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Video | Review by Dan Taylor
Through
the years James Woods has given us some
memorable performances that've singled him
out as one of the best actors working today.
Even in crap like CAT'S EYE his turn is
tight and interesting. His performance as
Cleve in the underrated BESTSELLER was impressive
and deserves to be discovered via video.
This 1987 police thriller based on the James
Ellroy book Blood on the Moon features
Woods as Crazy Lloyd Hopkins, a homicide
cop on the trail of a vicious killer.
COP starts off great with
a burglar calling the police to report a
murder: "I was gonna hit this place
in Hollywood man til I seen what was in
there. Some heavy shit went down. Like somethin'
from a Peckinpah movie." Right away
I was intrigued and held high hopes for
the remainder. Hopkins takes the call and
investigates, finding a woman's body strung
from the ceiling and swinger/sex newspapers
on the desk. It's at this point that COP
takes an extended vacation.
It turns out Hopkins' wife
thinks he's crazy — hence the nickname
— so she packs up their daughter and
takes off until our man can get things right.
He then becomes so totally engrossed in
the case that he begins to step on the toes
(forget "toes," we're talking
entire limbs) of those higher up in the
department, even though they're looking
for an excuse to get rid of this maverick.
Yawn...pretty traditional TV-Movie of the
Week stuff folks.
Throw in Charles Durning as
Hopkins' ex-partner and Charles Haid as
a cop on the make and you've fulfilled two
more necessary cliché's for any cop
drama. Lesley Ann Warren—doing her
best Susan Sarandon imitation—plays
a feminist poet/rape victim at the center
of the mystery, and Randi Brooks rounds
things out as one fabulous babe.
I was quite disappointed.
The much-touted violence is nonexistent
(allegedly, the film received an "X"
rating for its violent nature), there are
so many clichés it's beyond belief,
the acting is strictly by the numbers (even
Woods seems not to know what he's doing
here), it's too long (110 minutes seeming
like 2.5 hours), ends too abruptly, and
is essentially dull and boring.
All is not lost though, as
COP does have two great lines, both belonging
to Hopkins: "Come on Dutch. You blow
away a broad's date, the least you can do
is drive her home" and "I don't
give a shit if the two of you were fucking
each other in a bathtub of cocaine."
Oh well, you can't expect
greatness every time out.
