Maniac Cop (1988)

I thought about being a police officer for a brief period of time.  I’m sure that, much like how the amount of FBI applicants rose when The X-Files became popular, this desire sprang from a love of shows like Beretta, Starsky And Hutch, and Hunter.  Unlike the sexier private detective characters , police (on television) most likely wouldn’t be roughed up and intimidated by polyester-clad goons.  No, they would do the roughing up, because that was life on the streets, baby, and you had to be tough as nails.  And that’s when it dawned on me: tough as nails, I ain’t.  Watch any detective show, and the crap these guys go through looks inordinately painful (if not at present then certainly the day after).  There was also the requirement of being able to run after perps in uncomfortable-looking footwear.  I have wide, flat feet, and just finding the shitty New Balance sneakers I wear around was a task and a half.  I’d hate to see how far I would have to go to get an agreeable pair of work kicks for walking a beat in the naked city.  Naturally, I don’t think most cops on the job go through anything even remotely approaching the level of action of Hawaii Five-O.  As a matter of fact, I tend to imagine that, in reality, there is a ton of paperwork to fill out.  I’m pretty good at paperwork, ironically enough.  I don’t love it, and I would rather be leaning on suspects, but all things considered, it’s probably safer than getting shot at.  Okay, I definitely should not be a police officer.

As Cassie (Jill Gatsby) is walking home from work one night, she is attacked by a pair of vicious muggers.  No shrinking violet, Cassie manages to fend them off long enough to make a break for it.  Spotting a policeman across a dark playground, Cassie darts for him, but her ersatz rescuer lifts her by the throat and snaps her neck.  As detective Frank McCrae (Tom Atkins) investigates, the victims of the Maniac Cop (Robert Z’Dar) continue to pile up.

The central idea behind William Lustig’s film is really simplicity itself.  In fact, it’s all right there in the title, and this is one of the big appeals of the film: It is plain in its intentions.  This is a quasi-Slasher about a maniac cop.  It has all of the puzzle pieces it needs, and it puts them all down in the proper order, so the audience never completely has time or reason to question the sillier aspects of anything that’s going on.  Add to that, good performances from solid character actors like Atkins, Bruce Campbell, and William Smith, and the film becomes a nice bit of comfort viewing.  Like a quiche at twenty-four frames-per-second.  

Of course, part of the simplicity of why the film works also leads to its more interesting facets.  At this point in time, the idea of the vigilante cop and vigilantes in general were still very popular in cinema.  The year before this film was released saw the fourth installment in the Death Wish series of films, and the same year as its release, the final Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool, came out, just for two examples.  But what Maniac Cop does is turns these premises on their heads.  Our antagonist still kills with impunity, but he’s not cleaning up the streets from the scum of the Earth.  No, he’s killing innocent people, and inexorably he will turn on the brotherhood of which he at one time counted himself a member.  So, he’s sort of a vigilante for evil (isn’t that a contradiction in terms?).  Okay, you say, so he’s like every other Slasher antagonist, hacking up people left, right, and center?  Well, yes and no.  He has the physical traits of a standard slasher (imposing physique, seeming imperviousness to harm, relentless tenacity), and his kills are set up and executed like vignettes with a gruesome payout.  But his initial victims are completely unconnected and innocent.  There is no punishment of characters for having unmarried sex.  There is no punishment of characters for violating his territory.  Cordell’s victims are strictly victims.  But what they feel like in the terms of the film is practice for what is coming.

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD**  

This kind of leads into another element of the film.  It is very much concerned with ideas of betrayal.  One of our ostensible heroes is caught cheating on his estranged wife (Victoria Catlin) with our female lead (Laurene Landon).  He is then accused of being the maniac cop, thus creating a faux betrayal of the brotherhood of police.  Cordell’s friend Sally (Sheree North) actually does betray the police, though she initially has good intentions in what she does.  Cordell himself is a victim of betrayal by the police he had counted as his brothers (though he was reputedly a bit of a gunslinger even before his ordeal).  But more than all that, at its core, Maniac Cop is about the betrayal of the public trust (see how it’s all right there in the title?).  This is developed a bit in the story with a scared citizenry shooting first and asking questions later (what Cordell was accused of by some of his higher ups and colleagues).  Yet, the filmmakers never take it all the way to its logical conclusion, perhaps because of budget constraints, perhaps because of genre constraints, I can’t say.  

But it gets at a deeper concern many people have.  Can we really trust the people with whom we’ve placed our security?  Who, after all, will guard the guards themselves?  And how can you trust those guardians?  Ideas of police brutality are tossed around, and while the movie at the very least raises the questions, it also never really answers them.  Partly this is because to do so would make a very good Action/Horror film into a pedantic philosophical discussion.  Partly this is because I think Lustig, along with screenwriter/producer Larry Cohen, has enough faith in the audience to either know their feelings on the subject and even whether or not they would care to consider it.  Consequently, they give the viewers the ingredients and the instructions and leave the actual cooking up to the individual (another quiche reference?  How droll).  Using straightforward direction as well as some unobtrusive but still very impressive cinematography by Vincent J. Rabe (who only shot one other film, unfortunately), the filmmakers produced an entertaining little film that has something of a brain underneath, if you’re so inclined to dig that deep.  But you don’t have to in order to enjoy it.

MVT:  Lustig has always had a very unpretentious hand behind the camera, and his direction works because it doesn’t put on airs while simultaneously acknowledging that there is some thought at play.  It doesn’t pretend that it’s more than it is, but it also doesn’t pretend it’s dumb.

Make Or Break:  I think the first kill scene does a fantastic job of setting up the premise and the tone.  It has an edge to it, some unexpectedness (Cassie’s more of a badass than one would think at first blush), and a nasty little ending.  What more could you ask of a film titled Maniac Cop?

Score:  7.25/10                

Dead End City (1988)

I would only recommend “Dead End City” to two groups of people. The first being those who have run the gamut on the thugs taking over subgenre. The others being those who have devoured the tastier Robert Z’Dar projects. Both are utilized here, but not to their full potential. There are delicious nuggets of both, but a lot of vanilla content in between.

The film starts out very promising. Gangs have overtaken the town with the police force not being able to strike back. Their solution is to simply give up their property to the gangs and ship the victims off to a refugee camp. Jack Murphy (Greg Cummins) doesn’t want to give up his factory due to it being a family heirloom. Begrudgingly, his coworkers (including a blind man who constantly forgets he’s blind) stick with him to defend the factory.

The gang that wants to overthrow Jack is The Ratts, led by Maximum (Robert Z’Dar). Despite him being the leader, it’s clear he’s not running the whole show. I won’t spoil who is, but it’s pretty obvious. This limits Z’Dar’s screen time, which is a huge deficit. Despite him seemingly phoning in his performance, he still brings the Z’Dar charisma that is entertaining to watch. Nobody will mistake Z’Dar for a splendid actor, but he has tremendous screen presence!

More time is devoted to Jack and his crew, which gets beefier with the arrival of Opal Brand (Christine Lund), a television reporter who brings along her crew. They’re plan is to get a quick, biased story on Jack and his coworkers, framing them to be another gang. When a real gang demolishes their car (it looks like a wrecking ball hit it), they’re stranded in the abandoned factory, as well. There’s also a hyperactive gentlemen who drops by to hide out, but he’s disposable (enough that I don’t even care to look him up).

The first action sequence, which takes place before Opal’s arrival, is extremely entertaining. Jack and company have a shootout with The Ratts that’s a little different from the norm. Our heroes stay locked up in the factory, poking holes in the walls to shoot out of. The walls themselves can be easily shot through, which poses a problem for Jack and the rest, but it obscures them from the Ratts’ view.

Once this scene ends, the film goes downhill. It never reaches the depths of drudgery, but it becomes very rudimentary. Jack and Opal fall in love, despite having no chemistry; we get to learn about the rest of Jack’s crew, who aren’t that interesting (outside of the aforementioned blind man); we learn who’s really behind the operation (which is about as surprising as a hooker having venereal diseases); Z’Dar gets limited screen time to plot with his cronies. We still get the occasional action sequence, all of which are good. They just go from diverse to average.

One compliment I must give director Peter Yuval is in the scene where Jack, having learned who’s behind the operation, goes back to the factory. When he enters, all of the dead bodies from earlier are still strewn about the building. He tiptoes over them to get to his destination. This is a small blip on the radar, but one that I really enjoyed. It was a nice, tiny touch that Yuval made that showed he was trying to be creative.

“Dead End City” isn’t a bad film. It’s definitely entertaining in spots. However, it plays by the book too heavily after the first act and has some serious dry spots. Using Robert Z’Dar a bit more would have helped, as he was his charismatic self as Maximum. He may have seemed a bit less energetic, but still fun. If you haven’t explored most of his catalogue, I suggest starting with “Trained to Kill”, “Maniac Cop” and “Tango & Cash”. If you haven’t seen many gang films, I suggest starting with “Vigilante” and “The Warriors”. If you have seen those, then seeing “Dead End City” is at least worthwhile. Just not something you need to rush out and find.

MVT: Despite not being featured as heavily as I’d hoped, I’ll still choose Robert Z’Dar. He may be phoning it in, but he’s still a lot of fun as Maximum and gives Jack a good foil.

Make or Break: I almost want to say the first action sequence made the film for me, but the arrival of Opal Brand (which is a terrible name, by the way) broke the film for me. She didn’t add anything outside of a bland love interest and led the way in dragging the film down with lame character exposition.

Final Score: 5.5/10