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28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I heard there was a way of life out here., May 9, 2004
Sylvester Stallone can act. There. I said it. And as ridiculous as that statement may appear to some readers, you really do owe it to yourself to take a look at "Cop Land," and see just how good of an actor Sylvester can be! Who would believe that Stallone could appear on the same screen as Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, and Robert De Niro, and hold his own? Certainly not this viewer, and I admit that when I originally went to see the film it was BECAUSE of Keitel, Liotta, and De Niro. So you can imagine just how surprised I was that Stallone wasn't blasted off the screen by the combined talent of his heavyweight co-stars. Stallone plays "Sheriff Freddy Heflin," the law in the small, New Jersey town of Garrison, just across the George Washington Bridge. What makes Garrison special is that a large percentage of the residents are cops who work the other side of the bridge; hence the nick-name of "Cop Land." There are very few burglaries in Garrison, in fact, there is very little CRIME in Garrison period, so Freddy's days seem to be an endless round of completing paperwork for littering violations, cautioning the occasional drunk, and rescuing children's soft toys from being run over in the road. This is a shame, because Freddy wants to be a REAL cop, he wants to work the other side of the bridge, but an injury sustained when he saved a women who's car ended up in the river has left him deaf in one ear. Poor Freddy would never pass the physical, but the town showed its appreciation by allowing him to be the Sheriff... kind-of a consolation prize. But all is not well, there's something rotten in the town of Garrison, a corruption that's eating at the towns soul, and this corruption is personified in the character of "Ray Donlan," played by Keitel. When a fellow cop is involved in a questionable double homicide, Donlan initiates a cover-up that will have explosive consequences for the quiet town of Garrison, but especially for himself and Sheriff Heflin. The fall-out will also engulf the Sheriff's best friend, "Gary Figgis," played by Ray Liotta, another "real" cop, but one who's sick of the corruption and is getting out. Also involved is IAD staffer "Lt. Moe Tilden," played by De Niro, who's been tracking Donlan and his team, and is determined to bring them down. This is an excellent ensemble cast that really shines in their roles, and Stallone, as I said before, is a revelation. He piled on about 40lbs to play the part, so what we see is not the pumped-up, testosterone driven action man we have come to know and love, but a quieter, humbler, slightly "slow," kind-a bumbling character. Sad and ineffectual, he's barely tolerated by Donlan and his cronies, who's company he so desperately wants to keep. The story is tight and economical, the dialogue has the ring of authenticity to it, and there's a bitter-sweet romantic sub-plot between Freddy and one of the town's residents that works perfectly within the story. There's a scene where he's asked, by the woman he secretly loves, why he didn't marry, "All the best girls were taken," he replies, and you can practically see the big guy's heart breaking in two! Don't be put off because Stallone has top billing, this is an excellent film that works on many levels, with a clutch of superbly realistic performances driven by a well constructed story, I would recommend it highly.
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![Cop Land (Blu-Ray) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5166lDjA69L._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
DVD ~ Sylvester Stallone
DVD ~ Sylvester Stallone
DVD ~ Sylvester Stallone
DVD ~ Sylvester Stallone
DVD ~ Sylvester Stallone
