Copland

A movie by James Mangold

With Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta and others

Christina says:

The small town of Garrison, New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan, is inhabited almost exclusively by cops who took their families away from the crime and dangers of New York City. In Garrison you can live well, as long as you abide by the rules of Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel). He is a big cheese with the police union and created Garrison with the help of the mob.

Freddie Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) has lived by Donlan’s rules for ten years. After heroically saving a girl from drowning he had to kiss his dream of becoming a police officer good-bye because he lost his hearing on one ear. And the girl didn’t even have the decency to marry him afterwards. So he became sheriff of Garrison County and keeps his eyes firmly shut when the "real" cops break the law.

Then all of a sudden he finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Moe Tilden (Robert DeNiro) of the Internal Affairs Department wants Freddie to help him uncover Ray Donlan’s mob connections. Freddie’s friend, the cop Figgis (Ray Liotta), keeps talking about corruption until even Freddie’s slow brain pieces things together. Apart from that Ray’s nephew is hiding out in the woods because he got stuck between the lines of corrupt police and criminals and fears for his life.

COPLAND managed to surprise me. It was not because of Sylvester Stallone that I didn’t really like the movie. That was completely due to the muddleheaded realization of the script. I wouldn’t go as far as to call Stallone a character actor after this performance, but the way he had looking sadly into the camera, talking ... very ... slowly and shuffling through the movie in slow motion was more than I expected.

Robert DeNiro didn’t get a look-in and ought to shoot his hair-stylist.

More than once the movie jumped so hectically from scene to scene that it seemed as if they forgot to shoot the complete scene. Still the story dragged along sluggishly to the great showdown. And the whole thing ended as usual with Sly with a gun against the rest of the world.

The script writer mistook confusion for complexity. A dose of realism would have done a world of good. If the actions of the characters had been a little more plausible I might have developed an interest in them.

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Christina Gross