Not so slick as last year’s Manhunter, Cop deals with the same kind of lawman tracking down the same kind of killer. James Woods is savagely compelling as cop Lloyd Hopkins, who is convinced a grotesque sex slaying is the work of a serial killer. His affinity with the killer cuts even closer to the bone than did William L. Peterson’s in Mann’s thriller, and it is this uneasy connection that keeps us transfixed on Hopkins (in turn, it is this obsessional streak that severs Hopkins’ marriage) as he descends into a world of violence, prostitution and hustling that eats up innocence. That Hopkins flourishes in such an environment has us more intrigued with him than we are with the killer.
Cop Review
Cop Lloyd Hopkins (Woods) is on the tail of a serial killer in L.A. The only way to catch him is to get inside his mind, which involves running around the seedy underworld at night, ignoring his marriage and using the kind of choice language that only James Woods can...
Release Date:
01 Jan 1988
Running Time:
110 minutes
Certificate:
18
Original Title:
Cop
James Ellroy's work has had its hardness transferred well from the page to the screen, where James Woods brings it to life in a manic one-man show of simmering, barely repressed rage. Shame the plot can't keep up.
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