Film Review: Cop (dir by James B. Harris)

Posted on December 6, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1988, Cop stars James Woods as Lloyd Hopkins, a homicide detective who does not …. wait for it …. GO BY THE BOOK!

Actually, has there ever been a movie about a homicide detective who always made sure to go by the book? I’m sure there has been but I really can’t think of any off the top of my head. Whenever a homicide detective shows up as the main character of a movie, you can be sure that he’s going to drink too much, carouse too much, and get yelled at by his superiors. If the movie involves a serial killer, you can be sure that the detective and the killer are going to be mirror images of each other, two renegades who have found differing ways to work out their issues with the world.

As much as we talk about the cliché of the cop who does it his way, would we really want to see a movie about a cop who plays by the rules? I mean, most people dread having to deal with cops. It’s not just that cops usually bring bad news. It’s also that dealing with a cop means having to spend a lot of time while they slowly and methodically go through all of their procedures. There have been so many times that I’ve been pulled over speeding and I’ve just wanted to yell, “Just write the ticket!” Most people agree that we need some sort of police force, regardless of what the Defund folks say. But most people also hate following the rules, especially when those rules feel rather arbitrary. That’s the appeal of the renegade cop. The renegade cop fills a purpose in society but, at the same time, he dislikes dealing with all of the usual cop nonsense as much as the rest of us.

As for Lloyd Hopkins, he’s hyperactive, jittery, sleazy, and a terrible father and husband. He cheats on his wife. He tells his daughter all about the gory details of his job. (His daughter, it should be noted, seems to enjoy hearing them.) He obsesses on the crimes that he investigates and he pursues murderers with a fanaticism that suggests that Lloyd knows that he’s just one bad life choice away from becoming one of them himself. (And, indeed, Lloyd kills quite a few people over the course of Cop, even allowing one person to get into another room and get a shotgun just so Lloyd will have an excuse to shoot him.) Lloyd is someone who is dangerous to know but, at the same time, he’s also probably the only person who can stop the killer who is seemingly committing random murders in Los Angeles.

The plot is typical of films about obsessive detectives pursuing faceless killers but Cop stands out due to the director of James B. Harris and the lead performance of James Woods. Harris creates an atmosphere of continual unease, one in which the viewers gets the feeling that anyone could become the killer’s next victim at any moment. James Woods, meanwhile, plays Lloyd as being a live wire, someone who simply cannot stop thinking and talking because he knows that the minute he does, he’s going to have to take a serious look at the wreck of his life and his own less-than-stable behavior. Lloyd may be a self-destructive bastard but he’s a compelling self-destructive bastard and, in this film’s version of Los Angeles, he’s about as close as one can get to avenging angel. The film is full of good actors, like Charles Durning, Lesley Ann Warren, and Raymond J. Barry, but it is ultimately James Woods’s show. Lloyd gets the film’s final line and it’s a killer but it works because, by the time he utters it, the viewer feels as if they have gotten to know Lloyd.

Cop is based on Blood on the Moon, a novel by James Ellroy. I have not read that novel so I don’t know how closely Cop sticks to Ellroy’s original plot. Nor do I know how James Ellroy felt about Cop, which was the first movie to be based on his work. That said, Ellroy’s writing and Harris’s film share a dark vision of humanity and a subversive sense of humor. Ellroy has often declared himself to be the world’s great crime novelist and, from what I’ve read of his work, I would tend to agree. Cop is certainly not the greatest crime movie ever made (nor is it the best film to ever be adapted from Ellroy’s writing) but it’s still pretty damn good.

Film Review: Some Call It Loving (dir by James B. Harris)

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1973’s Some Call It Loving tells the story of Robert Troy (Zalman King). He’s rich. He has a girlfriend (or maybe she’s his wife, we’re never quite sure) named Scarlett (Carol White). He lives in a big, beautiful mansion with Scarlett and Scarlett’s girlfriend, Angelica (Veronica Anderson), and several different women who Robert and Scarlett bring home so that they can all pretend to be someone other than who they are. (When the film begins, Scarlett is pretending to be the strict head mistress of a finishing school. Later, she’ll pretend to be a nun.)

Robert seems like he should be happy but, from the minute we see him, it’s obvious that he’s not. He’s mired in deep ennui and even playing in a jazz band at a nightclub doesn’t seem to bring him any real joy. Robert plays saxophone. His best friend in the band is Jeff (Richard Pryor), a barely coherent junkie who is probably only alive because of the pills that Robert keeps him supplied with.

One night, Robert goes to a carnival. He stops at a tent that apparently houses “Sleeping Beauty.” Inside the tent, a young woman named Jennifer (Tisa Farrow, later to star in Lucio Fulci’s classic Zombi 2). Jennifer is in a comatose state. People pay a dollar so that they can enter the tent and kiss her. Her “owner” says that Robert can do more with her if he’s willing to pay $50. Robert instead buys her for $20,000.

It turns out that Jennifer has been in a coma for eight years. She’s been kept in that state by a “sleeping potion,” a cocktail of drugs that has to be administered on a daily basis. Robert takes her back to his mansion and doesn’t give her the potion. Eventually, Jennifer wakes up.

Now, speaking for myself, if I woke up in a strange place after being in a forced coma for eight years, I’d probably be pretty pissed off. Jennifer, however, cheerfully accepts that the fact that she’s been asleep for eight years and now she’s living with a somewhat creepy man and his two girlfriends. She’s just happy to have her mansion and her Prince Charming!

While Scarlett and Angelica view Jennifer as being someone new to play games with, Robert starts to develop real feelings for her. He wants to have a real life with Jennifer but, unfortunately, the only life that Jennifer knows is the fake one that he’s created with Scarlett and Angelica. Robert finds himself torn between deciding whether or not to commit to Jennifer or to the fake world that he and Scarlett have created at the mansion….

Some Call It Loving is a strange film. It’s incredibly pretentious in the way that only an art film from 1973 could be. Reportedly, the film was a box office disaster in America but the European critics loved it. That’s not surprising because the film’s sensibility is far more European than American. Not only does the film refuse to judge its characters but it also ends on the type of ambiguous note that seems specifically designed to alienate mainstream audiences. Though the film’s plot has all the making for a kinky melodrama, it’s actually far more of an erotic fairy tale. Jennifer really is Sleeping Beauty but, unfortunately, Robert may not be quite prepared to be a true life Prince Charming. In the end, both Jennifer and Robert are trapped by their own fantasies.

As I said, it’s pretentious but it’s also strangely watchable. From the opening of the film, director James B. Harris achieves a properly dream-like feel and Zalman King manages to be both compelling and creepy at the same time. Tisa Farrow is perfectly cast as Jennifer and the mansion where the majority of the film takes place is simply to die for. Even if Robert is a creep, he at least has good taste when it comes to interior design. Some Call It Loving is obviously not a film for everyone. What some will find dream-like, others will find to be muddled and annoying. But it’s an intriguing artifact of early 70s arthouse cinema.

Fast-Walking (1982, directed by James B. Harris)

Posted on March 29, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Frank Miniver (James Woods) is the prison guard that everyone calls Fast-Walking. He’s involved in almost every vice that a man living in a small town in Oregon can be involved in. He takes bribes. He usually shows up for work stoned and what he doesn’t smoke, he sells to the prisoners and the other guards. He’s got a second job, running a trailer park brothel behind his cousin’s general store.

Frank’s cousin, Wasco (Tim McIntire), has been incarcerated and he expects Frank to help him take over the prison. At first, Frank has no problem working with Wasco and letting his cousin have free reign of the cell block. Wasco has soon established himself as the most powerful man behind bars. When a black power activist named Galliot (Robert Hooks) arrives at the prison, Wasco wants to arrange for him to be assassinated. Meanwhile, Galliot has offered Frank even more money to help him escape from the prison.

While Frank tries to keep both sides happy and make off with some money for himself, he’s also sleeping with Wasco’s accomplice on the outside, Moke (Kay Lenz). Originally, Wasco ordered Moke to seduce Frank in order to keep Frank in line but, as Moke and Frank’s relationship continues, Wasco starts to get jealous and starts plotting to put Frank back in his place.

Fast-Walking is a gritty film that features a good deal of dark humor. Unfortunately, the film’s many different parts never really come together and the film never strikes the right balance between comedy and drama. James Woods is perfectly cast as Frank and the underrated Kay Lenz does wonders with an underwritten role but Tim McIntire is a less than ideal Wasco. McIntire was a good actor but, physically, he’s all wrong for a character who is supposed to be so intimidating that he can walk into a prison and automatically take it over. Wasco is written and played as being such a cartoonish character that it’s difficult to take him or his plots seriously. The movie works best when it’s just focuses of James Woods’s nervy performance and Frank’s attempts to keep the other prison guards (including M. Emmett Walsh) from discovering his own racket.