Change Your Image
dd4781
Reviews
Cop Land (1997)
Great cast, too many plot holes
Too many unlikely unrealistic occurrences--like the corrupt cops would openly parade the hidden cop at a party. Reality would demand that you would hide him like Ann Frank. That when the Stallone character wished to transport his witness to NYC, he would do it alone and not call the State Police, newspapers, the FBI etc., to cover and protect him and the witness. In the shootout scene, Stallone's shotgun jams. The cop attempting to shoot him, with his pistol already drawn, apparently waits for Stallone to draw his pistol. What's he doing, fighting a formal duel? Not the action of a hard-boiled, ruthless, corrupt cop. Even the original premise is a bit false, INTENTIONALLY trying to run you off the road into a wall, even though the media does not like it, is usually reason enough to justify the officer's use of deadly force. And the deadly weapon doesn't have to actually be one. The courts usually rule that if a "reasonable man" perceives it as a deadly weapon, the shooting is justified. As in the poor schmo who robs with a realistic-appearing toy gun. If the officer had the view we had, The Club sure looked like a firearm of some sort. Then you couple that with the exploding tire and you have a reasonable man perceiving a justified threat.
The officer's shooting skill was like that of movie cowboys. After apparently imbibing a few, he's able to shoot, from a moving platform, at a fast-moving vehicle, with a short-barreled weapon, thru steel, rubber, upholstery, etc. well enough to kill two people. Sure. The reason for the animosity between the Keitel character and the DeNiro character is never explained. Too bad all this great acting talent had to be wasted on a swiss cheese story.
Septem8er Tapes (2004)
Fooled Me Because Some Journalists Are That Inept
Beforehand I read that it was shot on location as a documentary. Fooled me longer than 10 minutes because some TV stuff I've seen was indeed that inept, stupid, misled, ignorant, and full of beans, so I didn't figure this one was too far off the stuff that shows on 60 Minutes. Also, some TV journalists are as egotistical, uninformed, stupid, and ignorant as this movies' protagonist, so it wasn't a stretch to accept him as a real documentary maker. Also, the main character became so far from believable that he became a caricature of a "serious journalist," and needed to be laughed at. Whether this was intentional or not, it worked.
Gets a 10 to counter all those bitter "ones", to counter the Michael Moore-is-wonderful-and - everything-else-is-garbage syndrome. Also, some, especially the earlier, of the firefight scenes were excellent.
Definitely should be seen.