Cop Land: Collector's Series [Blu-ray + Digital HD]

Cop Land is a great play upon the traditional police drama and the thin blue line. The blue line is that cops don’t rat on each other even if they break the law. Robert De Niro as Internal Affairs Officer Tilden explains in a voice over during the introduction New York City cops wanted to move out of the city and settled in Garrison, New Jersey just across the river. What did they do there? They acted like the mafia. They got to tell local Sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) what to do. They made deals with each other and sent out threats and messages to those that didn’t toe the line. Heflin knew something of what was going on but always looked the other way. That’s because he always wanted to be a big city policeman but couldn’t because of a hearing disability. Things blow up and the dilemma for Heflin is whether he will stand up to the New York cops that live in his community or will he continue to give them free reign of the town.The movie is aided by an all star cast. Besides Stallone and De Niro, there is Lieutenant Donlan played by Harvey Keitel, Officer Jack Rucker played by Robert Patrick, Officer Gary Figgis played by Ray Liotta, Deputy Sheriff Betts played by Janeane Garofalo, and Rose Donland played by Cathy Moriarty.Stallone does a great job in the lead. He shows the appeal the big city cops have on him and how it influences his policing of the town. When he has to face them he's like a little child talking to his childhood hero. It's not your typical Stallone tough guy role.If you want to go beyond the usual police and thieves film, then you should watch Cop Land.C

For what films like this have given us in the past, this exceeded my expectations. It’s a good story which makes an effort to overcome its implausibility…only a little suspension of disbelief is required. Using a loophole explained in the opening monologue, some corrupt New York City cops take their families and establish their homes across the Hudson River in the small town of Garrison, New Jersey. The local law enforcement is led by town Sheriff Freddy Heflin, played by Sylvester Stallone. In the wake of a shooting, a cover-up, and the faked suicide of a young officer with a promising career, NYPD Internal Affairs Lieutenant Moe Tilden, portrayed by Robert De Niro, seeks to expose the officers’ corruption and find their ties to the Mafia. but, stymied by jurisdictional limits, he must turn to the local sheriff for help. Freddy, friends with the cops under investigation, is too intimidated to help, though his curiosity and sense of justice get the better of him. As I’ve said, effort went into this film all around. Apart from De Niro and Stallone turning in strong performances, players like Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert Patrick, Michael Rapaport and more all put their best foot forward. This, coupled with a strong script and focused direction by James Mangold, creates a world and conflict you can’t help but get sucked into. My favorite scene is near the end when Stallone, Liotta, and Rapaport meet up with De Niro in the city. It’s a satisfying ending to an engrossing adventure. James Mangold brought us a gripping tale with plenty of action, suspense, and tension, but there are problems. First, John Spencer is not in the film long enough. This is the John Spencer fan in me talking but, even so, the man has way more talent than what he was allowed to show us here. Second, while Sylvester Stallone is good as the sheriff, I don’t buy him being intimidated to keep quiet about the corruption. Yeah, he’s also blinded by his friendship with the officers, but there’s supposed to be intimidation alongside that. It’s simply not believable because it is Sylvester Stallone…would you ever expect him being intimidated. Cop Land brings fans of Mr. Stallone and other cast members a film they can add to their collections. Despite any flaws, you will want to see it and it has my recommendation. Enjoy.

Most people think I am crazy when I mention that Stallone can act. While most will agree he is good in the roles that are custom made for him such as Rambo or the self-penned Rocky (which is why no one could have played the character better, having written the story and created the character, he knew every nuance). Most are surprised when he rises above the action-adventure genre and delves into a much richer much or demanding role. With top notch proven dramatic actors such as Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel as well as the intense acting of Ray Liotta it's hard to believe that not only can Stallone hold his own but he can still steal a scene. The writing is top notch, the acting is great. Everyone has a reason to be there, and we know why. While we kind of felt pity for Stallone's Sheriff, we understood. having lost the use of his left ear due to a water rescue earlier in his life, of the woman he would grow to love who was forever out of reach, he was unable to join the police force and was forced to settle for a job as Sheriff in Cop Land. So named because most of those living within it's confines were all blue, working in the major city but escaping there to spend time with their families. Settling into a life where the grit and grime of the big city couldn't reach them.We can sympathize with Stallone's character for his hero worship, and we can see the wheels turning when he realizes they are way less than perfect. We see his life crash around him and we can see the effects it has on him through his eyes, through his behavior and through his simple-man rationalizations. The end result is his coming to a point where he realizes he is the only one who can do anything to stop the plague of corruption that has settled into his normally quiet domain. There is a scene at the carnival where he is confronted by one of the crooked cops and we can see through his actions how he "changes" from the happy-go-lucky look the other way sheriff into the "take action" man he needed to be in order to do the right thing.Throughout the movie there are subtly nuanced scenes that shows you there are grey areas in right or wrong, things most of us would turn the other way on. Such as his taking quarters out of a parking meter to play pinball. but the subtler scenes shows us there are still lines that no one should cross. And Stallone's ability to take us on a personal journey how his character evolves to become the man that he needed to be is worth the price of this blu ray alone. A great cop thriller with lots of things to keep your attention. I'd highly recommend it.

As a long-standing Stallone fan.. The Rocky films, Rambos, Cobra, Judge Dredd, even his more recent ones like The Expendables or Escape Plan - I've seen them all.What those films have in common though is that they are all of a similar genre(The Expendables even being in existence purely based on its predecesors) - Action films.Cop Land is something different. It shows Stallone in a different light, a working man. The local sheriff with the dodgy ear who just wants to earn his real badge.With an all-star cast to top it off, this is actually one of my favourite Stallone films and probably one of his lesser known ones to boot. Definitely worth a watch if you're a fan of his work.£6 for the Blu-Ray was a steal as well. Quality is great as expected.

Cop Land is written and directed by James Mangold with an ensemble cast featuring Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Robert Patrick, Peter Berg, and Michael Rapaport. Distributed by Miramax Films it features a musical score by Howard Shore.Freddy Heflin (Stallone) is the sheriff of Garrison, New Jersey. A small satellite town across the river from the Big Apple where many of the big city cops reside. Freddy always wanted to be a big city cop but due to partial deafness was unable to make the grade. But when a hero white cop shoots dead two black youths it sets off a series of events that make Freddy realise that the big city cops in Garrison aren't as honest as he is. Thus Freddy must decide if he should get involved.It was heralded as the film to break Stallone on to the A list of serious actors, and the film where a fine ensemble had gathered and worked for a basic scale wage-such was their faith in the material. Yet in spite of making a considerable profit at the box office and receiving generally favourable reviews, Cop Land seemed to vanish without trace before it could make its mark in the cop/drama genre. A lot of that can probably be put down to the sheer weight of expectation, considering the cast involved, for something out of the top draw. However, revisiting the film now, over ten years post its release, Mangold's movie shows itself to be the tight and intelligent picture it is.From the off it's evident that there's very little good about the town of Garrison. The coppers drink and drive, cheat on their partners and the sheriff looks like an out of work, overweight slob. Mangold clearly is more about the bleak than the beautiful. As the narrative and characterisations move forward, a multitude of strands start to dangle on the screen-where it at first appears a bit too chocked-but ultimately unfolds with ease as the story progresses. Here's where Cop Land excels, it could so easily have just been another good cop/bad cop movie, one where the doofus partially afflicted guy saves the day. But Cop Land is more intimate in detail of its characters, intimacy that is boosted by a pretty flawless cast (notably Stallone & Liotta). There's healthy helpings of action and drama, but it's the dialogue driven confrontations that entertain the most; where we get the pleasure of watching acting heavyweights battle for supremacy.With a slow burn sense of doom hanging over it from the off, Cop Land very much feels like a throwback to the adult westerns and film noirs from the 1950s. There's nothing wrong with that of course, in fact it's a compliment. But this deserves its own little niche, that of the contemporary crime thriller with urban western overtones. A damn fine film with a great thoughtful script, that is acted accordingly and directed without flab and pointless filler. 8/10

James Mangold's Copland was a victim of ridiculously high expectations on its release, but seen away from the hype it's a satisfying modern Western fable with Sylvester Stallone's half-deaf, rather slow on the uptake sheriff slowly realising that his town of New York cops is a nest of murderous corruption. It all ends in a showdown that makes imaginative use of sound but left the critics expecting something more cerebral floundering. Stallone and Ray Liotta are exceptionally good in a strong cast, with only Robert De Niro turning in a phoney and predictable slice of by-the-numbers hamming ("Go-TO-lunch! Go-TO-lunch!"). The director's cut doesn't add a great deal - the racial subplot is still relegated to the deleted scenes bin - and the new sound mix unfortunately loses one great use of sound (when Stallone plays records, in the old cut he could only hear them in mono), but unlike more and more recent directors' cuts it doesn't weaken the film either.The extras aren't plentiful, but they are good: an engaging audio commentary, two deleted scenes, a good featurette and a storyboard comparison.

Great cast it's a vague plot about corrupt cops hard to follow at times why they are bent and what bad things the cops do is vague but entertaining and better than some of Stallones movies

Great,really gets you involved in the movie and thinking about long after it’s finished. Stallone does well as the good guy in a bad town.