The Library: Cops
Three new reviews from my home library.
The Library is my attempt to watch at least 50% of the films in my DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD home library. To be included, I can't watch it streaming or catch it at a repertory screening - I have to watch the disc.
This column has experienced an unexpected temporary hiatus, but so let’s come back with a vengeance in this double edition! This week, we’re talking some cop movies and next week’s entry will see some flicks about robbers. Get it?
Current Count: 816 of 1,896 - 43%
Serpico (1973)
The real-life struggle of an honest New York City cop against a corrupt system.
All cops, except Frank Serpico, are bastards.
From the minute Serpico becomes a cop, his dreams of protecting and serving are broken. From witnesses to deli owners, the entire world of policing is built upon a back-scratching system that he finds disgusting as soon as the first free fatty roast beef sandwich is slid in front of him.
How could I not love this movie? It has the master Sidney Lumet behind the camera and 1973 Pacino in front of it - his other '73 movie, Scarecrow, has an equally lively, spontaneous performance that totally rocks you when all that silliness disappears. And the movie was dead right about everything 50 years ago and we didn't listen...
I love the fact that we're starting this list - one that could easily be filled with copaganda - with a movie that's anything but. Pulled from the shelves of the library's Pacino section, I watched this on a triple-feature DVD that also includes the unseen Internal Affairs and Narc.
Bullitt (1968)
Senator Walter Chalmers is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross with the help of testimony from the criminal’s hothead brother Johnny, who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses.
Bullitt, all these years later, is known as the movie with the awesome car chase through the streets of San Francisco. And yes, it's a pretty cool car chase! Steve McQueen is cool, the city is cool, director Peter Yates brings the vibes, it's exactly what everybody said it was.
So to fill the inches on this column, and since this is a series about physical media, I'll tell you about where I thrifted this DVD. Goodwill? Salvation Army? Yard sale? Nope - Habitat for Humanity! That's right, occasionally among the lamps and rugs and lumber and David Baldacci novels and knicks and knacks, there will be a small shelf of six coffee-stained DVDs. I'm not sure what compelled Taylor and I to go to this particular store on this particular day, but it had shelves and shelves and shelves of discs (something I've been emptily chasing since - a film fan with good taste must've died a few weeks before.) I picked up a bunch of stuff, including a McQueen box set that also includes The Getaway, The Cincinnati Kid, Papillon, Tom Horn, and Never So Few. The sign pretty clearly said $1 PER DISC, but because they don't sell a lot of discs, the cashier counted the entire BOX for $1. What a score! This is why collectors wake up in the morning.
Police Academy (1984)
New rules enforced by the Lady Mayoress mean that sex, weight, height and intelligence need no longer be a factor for joining the Police Force. This opens the floodgates for all and sundry to enter the Police Academy, much to the chagrin of the instructors. Not everyone is there through choice, though.
In an attempt to avoid the previously-mentioned copaganda, I found myself looking for cop movies with interesting twists on the genre itself or the stories told within the genre. I realized that Police Academy was in the Chevy Chase section (Wait, Chevy Chase isn't in that movie, right? Right, but he is in Spies Like Us, another film in the bizarre five-film pack called Iconic '80s that also includes The Outsiders, Risky Business, and Fame) and could totally fit that mold. So instead of compiling a list of awesome movies about awesome cops, I ended up watching three movies that were exactly as good as everyone always said they were.
Police Academy hasn't exactly aged well, but I must admit it elicited a few chuckles I'm not proud of. '80s movies liked to make fun of anyone who didn't look like the guy writing the movie, but this also makes fun of bureaucracy and corruption and law enforcement, so we will let some of it slide. Steve Guttenberg is pretty plain (this is his most popular film on Letterboxd), Michael Winslow sure does make all those crazy noises, and I'd like to think that Kim Cattrall could do no wrong. The movie is fine, but not six sequels fine...
Credit: Each plot synopsis comes from Letterboxd via TMDb.