6/8/07: Cop (1988)We’ll be on vacation at the end of next week, so let’s start what would’ve been a Father’s Day theme week now—and don’t go complaining about how we didn’t come up with a single entry for Mother’s Day. We were busy, that’s all. It doesn’t mean anything. Christ, you sound just like our…never mind.
Anyway, here’s James Woods’ finest showcase of 1988.
Cop barely got a theatrical release, but we’d have gladly paid to see this one on the big screen. The film was adapted from a James Ellroy novel back when nobody cared about movies adapted from James Ellroy novels. In truth, this one feels more like a
Jack Cannon adaptation.
The generic title hints at the film’s potential as a black comedy. The entire script is pretty much an excuse for a final gag based on the ultimate cop-on-the-edge cliché. Woods’ turn as L.A. homicide detective Lloyd Hopkins is certainly played for laughs. In one memorable scene, Hopkins is comforting a feminist poet whose background will lead to the identity of a serial killer. They’re together on a couch at her place. She’s rambling on about her career and spiritual journey while Hopkins maintains the perfectly polite expression of a gentleman who wants to get laid. Then the lady makes a quick mention of her bisexual past. Any guy will appreciate how expertly Woods plays the appropriately subtle reaction.
But this is a Father’s Day post, which brings us to the scene most likely to be mentioned in a
Cop review. Hopkins’ marriage is falling apart over plenty of things, including his clever idea of bringing home police reports and reading them to his daughter as bedtime stories. His uptight wife disapproves, but Hopkins makes a good case for teaching little Penny some cold hard facts of life and death:
Every woman who does herself in is a little girl. Every hooker with a habit out working her ass for a pimp who gets wasted by some psychopath is a little girl. All of these little girls have one thing in common—disillusionment. And it all comes from one thing: a terminal disease that comes from way back when they’re fed all the bullshit about how they’re entitled to happiness like it’s their birthright.You can be damn sure that the L.A. school system was already putting way too much emphasis on self-esteem classes back in the 1980s. It’s good to have Hopkins chasing murderers, but maybe he should’ve been heading up the local PTA.
And his daughter seems happy. We’re going out tomorrow to buy our kid some of those Mexican true-crime magazines.
Don’t forget that James Woods became a Hollywood outcast as a patriotic American after 9/11. Things would stay rough for the guy until he showed up on
E/R as a likable doctor who had a lot of complaints about President Bush. Now he’s got a hit show with
Shark, but we’d rather have seen
Cop turned into an F/X series.
Make it your own: The bare-bones
DVD looks good, but
VHS copies are cheaper—and certainly provide more of the 1988 experience.
