Cop Land

Cop Land
Cop Land promotional poster
Directed by	James Mangold
Written by	James Mangold
Starring	Sylvester Stallone Harvey Keitel Ray Liotta Robert De Niro Peter Berg Janeane Garofalo Robert Patrick Michael Rapaport Annabella Sciorra
Music by	Howard Shore
Editing by	Craig McKay
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release date(s)	August 15, 1997 (1997-08-15)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15 million
Box office	$44,862,187 (US-Canada)

Cop Land is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by James Mangold. It features an ensemble cast led by Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro.

Plot

Set in 1988 in the town of Garrison, New Jersey, located across the Hudson River from New York City, a large number of residents are NYPD Officers.

One night, the car of young cop Murray "Superboy" Babitch (Rapaport), nephew of Lt. Ray Donlan (Keitel), is sideswiped on the George Washington Bridge by a couple of African-American teens. Thinking they had fired at him, Babitch fires back and the teens are killed in the ensuing crash.

Worried about a possible racial incident, Donlan's solution is to fake a suicide, pretending that Babitch jumped off the GWB. When a corrupt cop, Jack Rucker (Patrick), is caught trying to plant a weapon to justify the shooting, other corrupt Officers, including Det. Leo Crasky (Spencer) and Frank Lagonda (Nascarella), fear Babitch will resurface and testify to Internal Affairs.

IA Investigator Lt. Moe Tilden (De Niro) asks Garrison's mild-mannered half deaf Sheriff Freddy Heflin (Stallone) to provide information on the corrupt cops who live in his town. Though they work in a different city, Freddy views them as brothers and is reluctant to betray them, derailing Tilden's investigation.

Freddy is secretly in love with Liz Randone (Annabella Sciorra), whose life he once saved in a near-drowning that cost him the hearing in one ear. The deafness prevented Freddy from joining the NYPD like so many others in town, including the man Liz eventually married, Joey Randone (Berg).

Although the cover-up at first seems successful, Donlan is told by Patrolmen's Defense Association President Vincent Lassaro (Vincent) that without a body, the case will not stay cold. Donlan reluctantly decides that his nephew should be killed. Babitch is tipped off by his Aunt Rose (Cathy Moriarty) and escapes. He goes to Freddy's house looking for help, but when he sees Freddy's friend (and fellow NYPD cop) Gary "Figgsy" Figgis (Liotta), he flees.

When Freddy realizes his mistake, he returns to Tilden, but is angrily told that the case was blown by his failure to co-operate earlier. As he is shown the door, Freddy steals several NYPD files on the case. Back in his office, he studies the files and realizes the extent of his friends' corruption. He returns home to find Figgsy packing to leave, not wanting to be further involved.

Freddy tells his Deputies what he is doing. Deputy Cindy Betts (Janeane Garofalo) has decided to leave Garrison, frustrated by the New York cops having turned the town into their own personal fiefdom. Freddy also finds out that Figgsy burned down his own house, for the insurance money, accidentally resulting in the death of his girlfriend Monica (Mel Gorham).

After Randone is killed on duty, leaving Liz a widow, Freddy becomes more determined. He persuades Rose to reveal where her nephew is hiding. Freddy finds him and takes him to Garrison's jail, where his Deputy Bill Geisler (Noah Emmerich) leaves to tend to his pregnant wife.

Freddy attempts to take Babitch to New York to turn over to Tilden, but they are ambushed, Rucker fires a gun next to Freddy's good ear and Babitch is taken. Knowing that Babitch has been taken to Donlan's house to be killed, Freddy prepares to take them on by himself. A shootout follows, with Freddy shooting Rucker and Lagonda. Freddy is then shot in the shoulder by Crasky, but is saved by the arrival of Figgsy, who kills Crasky. Freddy and Figgsy continue into the house where Babitch is trying to escape through a window. Ray sneaks up behind Freddy, but before he can fire, Figgsy shoots at Ray but misses. Barely hearing the shot, Freddy turns and fatally shoots Ray. As Ray lays dying on the floor, he mutters obscenities toward Freddy, which Freddy replies simply; "I can't hear you Ray."

Later, after the scandal has been investigated and indictments handed down, Freddy, who has recovered, is seen looking at the New York skyline from across the Hudson. Deputy Geisler notifies him about a jack-knifed truck and Freddy goes back to work.

Cast

• Sylvester Stallone as Sheriff Freddy Heflin
• Harvey Keitel as Lt. Ray Donlan
• Ray Liotta as Officer Gary "Figgsy" Figgis
• Robert De Niro as Lt. Moe Tilden
• Peter Berg as Officer Joseph "Joey" Randone
• Janeane Garofalo as Deputy Cindy Betts
• Robert Patrick as Officer Jack Rucker
• Michael Rapaport as Officer Murray "Superboy" Babitch
• Annabella Sciorra as Liz Randone
• Noah Emmerich as Deputy Bill Geisler
• Cathy Moriarty as Rose Donlan
• John Spencer as Det. Leo Crasky
• Frank Vincent as PDA President Vincent Lassaro
• Malik Yoba as Det. Sam Carson
• Arthur Nascarella as Officer Frank Lagonda
• Edie Falco as Berta (Bomb Squad Agent)
• Victor Williams as Officer Russell Ames
• Paul Calderón as Hector the Paramedic
• John Doman as Lassaro's Aide
• Deborah Harry as Delores (4 Aces bartender)
• Vincent Laresca as Robert the Paramedic
• John Ventimiglia as Officer Vic Trollio
• Tony Sirico as Tony "Toy" Torillo (photo only)
• Mel Gorham as Monica Lopez

Production

De Niro and Keitel had worked together on three previous films, Mean Streets in 1973, Taxi Driver in 1976, and Falling in Love in 1984. Due to the film's modest budget, all of the actors worked for scale. The entire main cast (with the exception of Robert Patrick) and most of the supporting cast, were born or raised in New York. Numerous supporting actors in Cop Land would later appear in The Sopranos, including Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Frank Vincent, Robert Patrick, Frank Pellegrino, John Ventimiglia, Robert John Burke, Arthur Nascarella, Bruce Altman, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Herman and Tony Sirico.

John Travolta was offered the role of Freddy but turned it down.^{[citation needed]}

The soundtrack features two songs from Bruce Springsteen's 1980 album The River; "Drive All Night" and "Stolen Car", and a score from Howard Shore.

The movie is based on Mangold's hometown Washingtonville, New York. He grew up in a development called Worley Heights, where many of the residents were NYPD.^{[citation needed]} However, Edgewater, New Jersey was the principal shooting location.

Reception

Cop Land had its world premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City on August 6, 1997. Some of the film's cast members attended, including Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Annabella Sciorra, Cathy Moriarty and Michael Rapaport.

Stallone's understated performance against type — he gained considerable weight for the role — was praised by critics and he received the Best Actor award at the Stockholm International Film Festival. Cop Land was also screened at the 54th Venice Film Festival in the Midnight line-up. Earlier in May 1997, the film was accepted into the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival, but Miramax declined the invitation due to re-shoots that were needed for the film, including footage of Stallone 40 pounds heavier.

Critical reaction was generally positive. Based on 59 reviews collected from notable publications by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an overall approval rating of 71%. Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "There is a rough balance between how long a movie is, how deep it goes and how much it can achieve. That balance is not found in Cop Land and the result is too much movie for the running time". On the other hand, Gene Siskel praised the movie, especially the screenplay, "One to be savored."

In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin felt that,

the strength of Cop Land is in its hard-edged, novelistic portraits, which pile up furiously during the film's dynamic opening scenes... Yet if the price of Mangold's casting ambitions is a story that can't, finally, match its marquee value, that value is still inordinately strong. Everywhere the camera turns in this tense and volatile drama, it finds enough interest for a truckload of conventional Hollywood fare. Whatever its limitations, Cop Land has talent to burn".

Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B-" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Stallone does a solid, occasionally winning job of going through the motions of shedding his stardom, but the wattage of his personality is turned way down—at times, it's turned down to neutral. And that pretty much describes Cop Land, too. Dense, meandering, ambitious yet jarringly pulpy, this tale of big-city corruption in small-town America has competence without mood or power—a design but not a vision". In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, "With its redundancy of supporting characters, snarled subplots and poky pace, Cop Land really might have been better off trading the director for a traffic cop". Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers praised Stallone's performance: "His performance builds slowly but achieves a stunning payoff when Freddy decides to clean up his town ... Freddy awakes to his own potential, and it's exhilarating to watch the character and the actor revive in unison. Nearly down for the count in the movie ring, Stallone isn't just back in the fight. He's a winner". In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle also liked Stallone's work: "His transformation is more than a matter of weight. He looks spiritually beaten and terribly sad. He looks like a real person, not a cult-of-the-body film star, and he uses the opportunity to deliver his best performance in years".

Soundtrack

Cop Land Miramax Motion picture
Soundtrack album by Howard Shore
Released	1997
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	40:11
Label	Miramax Motion picture

The score by Howard Shore was performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra released as a Cop Land Miramax Motion picture in 1997. The soundtrack was released on CD contained twelve tracks with a runtime of 40:11 minutes.

All music composed by Howard Shore.

Track listing
No.	Title	Length
1.	"All Dressed Up In Blue"	4:18
2.	"Garrison, NJ"	1:44
3.	"Yellow Betray Blue"	3:31
4.	"Local Boy Saves Drowning Teen"	3:03
5.	"Mashed Potatoes Don't Mean Gravy"	2:21
6.	"The Sheriff Of Cop Land"	2:37
7.	"Pool Of Crimson"	4:37
8.	"The Diagonal Rule"	4:25
9.	"Across The River"	4:58
10.	"Big Blue Pow Wow"	2:28
11.	"Without Looking At The Cards"	4:06
12.	"One Police Plaza"	2:03
Total length:		40:11

Home video

Cop Land: Director's Cut was released to DVD in June 2004. Features include the original 112-minute cut, restoration of deleted scenes and scenes extended, addition of New York band Blue Öyster Cult's "Burnin' for You" to the soundtrack and a new audio commentary with James Mangold, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Patrick and producer Cathy Konrad. Also included are a "Shootout Storyboard Sequence" and "The Making of an Urban Western" documentary.

On the DVD, there are two deleted scenes that primarily show the racism in the town of Garrison. One scene involves all the resident Police Officers chasing down a pair of black motorists and the other shows Heflin's Deputy pointing out that the majority of the tickets issued in Garrison go to black motorists on charges that suggest racial profiling. The movie itself implies a racist undercurrent in Garrison as all the NYPD Officers who live there are White, a black Internal Affairs Detective Carson implies that the cops who live in Garrison are racist to a black Patrolman named Russell who is at the scene of the bridge shootout, a black couple who drives through Garrison are unjustly given a ticket by one of Heflin's Deputies and blacks are implied by the Officers in different ways as "certain people" who are scared of Garrison and as an "outside element" that would present a crime problem to Garrison.

Legacy

Unlike 1991's Oscar and 1992's Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Stallone's previous high-profile attempts at branching out of the one-dimensional action star roles, both of which ultimately ended up commercially unsuccessful, critically panned, and often ridiculed, Cop Land with its star-studded heavyweight ensemble cast was met with high expectations as a multifaceted story based around corruption on the New York City police force. Additionally, it was to show Stallone in a completely different light, both physically (his 40lb weight gain got a lot of press coverage) as well as artistically by letting him showcase his acting skills. And while the film posted a solid box-office intake ($44.8 million domestically), got good reviews, and Stallone received positive critical notices for his performance as a demure small-town sheriff, in 2008 the actor stated on the Opie and Anthony Show that Cop Land "hurt" his career and that he had trouble getting roles for eight years, due to the film's failure to reach the high expectations set for it and the mix of views on whether he was leaving action movies for more character-driven content. Stallone has described this as "the beginning of the end, for about eight years".

In 2011, for Cop Land's release on Blu-ray, the film's writer and director James Mangold commented on the film's reception: "The movie was under so much pressure to be America's next Pulp Fiction. But it's such a dark and sad tale, less jazzy and more of a kind of morality tale. It ends in a dark place. The star value got so high, and Miramax wanted the grosses to be so high. When it came out, a lot of daggers were out for Sly. He had made a bunch of shittier moves, he’s the first to admit, that weren't aimed for the highest result each time out".

The title of the film was later used as a title of a mission in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, where the main character Tommy Vercetti is voiced by Ray Liotta.

External links

• Cop Land at the Internet Movie Database
• Cop Land at Rotten Tomatoes
• Cop Land at Metacritic