Everyone knows that police chiefs are the shoutiest, angriest men of the movie world. Relentlessly sweaty, perpetually on the verge of a major cardiac incident and never more than a minute from their next cup of joe (black, three sugars, goddamnit), they deserve sympathy and support. What they get instead is an array of rulebook-burning, shoot-first-find-out-who-they’re-shooting-at-later maverick detectives and cowboy cops hell-bent on driving them into an early retirement and / or the grave. Here are a few of our favourite scarlet-faced precinct warriors...
***Angry chief: ***Harry McDonald (Ernie Hudson)
Real-life experience? Nope. He’s a former Ghostbuster.
Angriest quote: “You want to stay, stay! But as a PRIVATE citizen.”
Fury level: Unconvincing.
Possible HR issues: Can you sack someone without a member of HR present?
***Health problems? ***Likely teeth-grinding.
***Badge taken? ***YES! Gun too!
FBI bureau Chief Harry McDonald just wants Agent Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) to be a little more like Clarice Starling and a little less like the pain-in-the-derriere she is. Is that so much to ask? Sadly, her undercover ambition to carry off the bad guy and win the Miss America pageant repeatedly leads to chaos and destruction, causing McDonald to pursue other leads instead. Our main concern is that the one-time Winston Zeddemore is just too gosh-darn cheerful to get truly, incandescently mad.
Angry chief: Inspector Todd (Gil Hill)
Angriest quote: "Don't think, Axel! It makes my dick itch."
Fury level: About to blow his top.
***Possible HR issues: ***Shouting; multiple uses of the word "ass" and one threat to "fry your ass into dog meat".
Health problems? Blood pressure of 120 over a billion. Itchy dick.
Badge taken? Not yet. Soon, though. Very soon.
The daddy, plain and simple. Hill had been a real-life cop, and Inspector Todd is what would happen if a kraken joined the Detroit Police Department and spent 20 years working with Axel Foley. A combustible mix of stress, exasperation and fury at Foley’s wiseassery, Todd is angry to the point of physically exploding. In fact, Axel’s very appearance in his office ("WHERETHEFUCKYOUBEENFOLEY?!") creates a chain reaction that threatens to explode Michigan. This man needs a holiday somewhere calmer. Like Saturn.
Angry chief: Lieutenant Dekker (Frank McRae)
Angriest quote: “SLAAAAAAAAAATERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
***Anger level: ***SOFURIOUSHEDOESN’TEVENBREATHEBETWEENWORDS.
Possible HR issues: Management skills are definitely rusty.
***Health problems? ***Early signs of full neural shutdown.
Badge taken? Yes, and Jack Slater’s not getting it back either.
A man who’s crushed more polystyrene that you’ve had hot dinners, Lieutenant Dekker is so furious he probably wakes up shouting. This is a policeman whose mental CAPS LOCK button is jammed, a policeman who sprinkles raw rage on his lunch, which he doesn’t even have time to eat because he’s too busy being angry. A policeman who is a walking, shouting, busting-down-to-desk-duty stereoty… hang on, we forgot ourselves. This is Last Action Hero. He’s a meta-copper.
Angry chief: Captain Harold Doby (Fred Williamson)
Angriest quote: “You two deserve each other!”
Anger level: Puce.
Possible HR issues: His charges have robbed seven bookies in six months. This is A LOT of paperwork.***
Health problems?*** Still has that megawatt grin. Just.
Badge and/or gun taken? No, mostly because they rarely turn up for work.
With a name like Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson, you’d expect this man to patrol fury road like an SUV designed and engineered in Mordor – and so it proves, even if the nickname dates back to Mr. Hammer’s NFL days. Trying to mesh the unique skill-sets of Hutch (bad cop) and Starsky (anally retentive cop) proves so far beyond Captain Doby – and bear in mind he’s been trying since the ‘70s TV show – that he’s basically given up.
Angry chief: Spencer Trilby (Charlton Heston)
Real-life experience? No, but he is Moses so that should count for something.
***Angriest quote: ***"Sweet Jesus, Harry. You surely screwed the pooch last night, didn't you?”
Fury level: Lets the eyepatch carry the rage.
***Possible HR issues: ***None to speak of. Slight Blofeld vibe is a worry.
***Health problems? ***There’s an eyeball missing, presumably hurled in fury at an errant agent, but otherwise he’s in good shape.
***Badge taken? ***N/A, and he’d never take someone’s gun away, even from their cold dead hands.
Not a cop per se, but still filling the role of vexed boss man with enough authority to make even Arnie nervous, Spencer Trilby makes the list. Angry sure, disappointed definitely – Harry Tasker is, after all, just back from trashing a large portion of Switzerland – Omega Sector’s head honcho is relatively restrained by the thermonuclear standards of this list. That said, there’s a sense that should Tasker give him much more grief, he’ll hit the button marked “SHARK TANK”.
Angry chief: Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano)***
Angriest quote:*** "I've got a police commissioner so far up my ass, if he spits it's coming out of my mouth."
Anger level: Pressure cooker.
Possible HR issues: That (probably live) grenade on his desk is a concern.
***Health problems? ***Use of a calming mantra (“Woosa!”) may be no defence against nervous breakdown.
Badge and/or gun taken? No, goddamnit, but just push him a little further…
Joey Pants glows the kind of red most often seen when a shuttle re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere. We’re calling it ‘Miami PD crimson’, a colour spectrum only glimpsed when Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) are wreaking havoc on the trail of some villains. Captain Howard was pretty mad in the first film, but eight more years of dealing with Lowry’s schtick has done absolutely nothing for his mood. Altogether now: “Woosa!”
***Angry chief: ***Captain L. Murphy (Steve Kahan)
Angriest quote: "I don't want jokes, Murtagh, I want arrests."
***Anger level: ***Tetchy. And no wonder, with all that saxophone.
***Possible HR issues: ***If anything, he’s not trying hard enough.
Health problems? Nasty case of passive aggression.
Badge and/or gun taken? Much worse than that: he gives them Joe Pesci.
If he’s nearly as low-effort in real life, we dread to think what Lethal Weapon director Richard Donner’s cousin Steve Kahan must be like at family functions. “I don’t give a fuck, Riggs,” his jaundice police captain mutters at one point, looking like a man who genuinely doesn’t give a fuck. “That’s why I don’t have an ulcer.” On the upside, he gets to save up all the shittiest assignments for Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtagh (Danny Glover), and lumber them with an annoying sidekick. Unfortunately, he has to do this for three movies.
Angry chief: Chief Inspector Dou (Barry Wong)
***Angriest quote: “***Your emotions are getting in the way!”
Anger level: Bloody furious, although more restrainedly so than some.
***Possible HR issues: ***None.
Health problems? No obvious problems. Might want to get that slo-mo thing looked at.
***Badge and/or gun taken? ***Nope, but prison is definitely in the offing.
It’s not easy being a policeman in a John Woo film: all those shoot-outs to deal with, all those Triads to bring down, the dry-cleaning bill for the dove poo. That said, Danny Lee’s detective (“numbnuts” to his boss) isn’t making life easy for his superiors by teaming up with Chow Yun Fat’s assassin and going completely rogue in the Hong Kong underground. His chief inspector is sufficiently irked to give him a major bollocking, although sadly without the histrionics beloved of his American counterparts.
Angry chief: Superintendent Pang (Philip Chan)
***Angriest quote: ***“This is a fucking ORDER!”
Anger level: Literally moments from a Hulk-out.
Possible HR issues: His massively insubordinate detective is keeping them all busy.
***Health problems? ***Needs to quit smoking.
Badge and/or gun taken? Tries to throw him off the case. Misses.
A 15-year veteran of the Hong Kong police force, Philip Chan’s Superintendent Pang channels some real-life fury into his hate-hate relationship with maverick cop Tequila (Chow Yun Fat), a man who literally ignores everything he’s told to do. “Give a guy a gun,” he philosophises angrily, “he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he’s God.” Give him four guns, limitless ammo and a ward full of babies, though, and, hey presto, he’s Mary fuckin’ Poppins.
***Angry chief: ***Captain Lorenzo (Dennis Franz)
***Angriest quote: ***“You’re the asshole who just broke seven FAA and five District of Columbia regulations running around my airport with a gun shooting at people. What do you call that shit?”
Anger level: Big angry fish in little terrorist-ridden pond
***Possible HR issues: ***Swears like Malcolm Tucker’s angry Italian-American cousin.
***Health problems? ***Blood pressure running at about 140 over get-the-hell-out-of-my-goddamn-office!
Badge and/or gun taken? Jurisdiction issues prevent it.
Coffee-swilling, LA-bullshit-hating asshat Captain Lorenzo is the kind of airport cop who makes you want to travel exclusively by bus. Sure, it’s Dulles Airport in Christmas week and he’s up to his ass in “fucking reindeer flying in from the fucking petting zoo”, but really, is doing an impression of a balding mushroom cloud really the best way of dealing with it? “John McClane’s got a little problem,” he mock-whines, “let’s shut down the airport.” He’s as sarcastic as he is unhelpful. Nice.
***Angry chief: *** Ben Harp (John C. McGinley)
Angriest quote: “Why don't you astonish me, shitface?”
Anger level: INCANDESCENT.
Possible HR issues: SHOUTING! LOTS OF SHOUTING!
Health problems? Seems to be sweating napalm. That punch in the face will leave a mark, too. But at least we know he eats healthy food.
Badge and/or gun taken? Nope. Didn’t even get his surfboard.
Young, dumb, full of cum and probably terrible at getting his paperwork done, Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is no-one’s idea of an easy ride for a put-upon FBI paper-pusher. Throw in Gary Busey’s long-serving wiseass, Pappas, and you’ve got the recipe for a big, fat helping of blue-flame special for Ben Harp (John C. McGinley). We’re not sure that either of them is actively helping the situation, mind you. “Now for Christ’s sake, does either one of you have anything even remotely interesting to tell me?” Harp rants at his two underlings. “I caught my first tube today... sir,” deadpans Utah.
Angry chief: Walt Simonson (Eddie Egan)
Angriest quote: “Score, my ass!”
***Anger level: ***Furious.
***Possible HR issues: ***This is the ‘70s. They didn’t have HR.
Health problems? This man could definitely use a holiday.
***Badge and/or gun taken? ***Nearly as bad: he fires Doyle from special assignment.
Like a number of other movie police chiefs, Eddie Egan is an ex-NYPD vet who brings his experience (and rage) to bear in dealing with Gene Hackman’s Detective ‘Popeye’ Doyle. In fact, Popeye is the nickname Egan himself picked up on the mean streets of Poughkeepsie, so that on-screen fury is real. Understandable, too, because whether beating the crap out of perps with a Santa costume on or beating the crap out them with a pork pie hat on, Doyle is the kind of loose cannon who can get a cop banged down to playground patrol in an arrhythmic heartbeat.
AnyClipPlayer.load(["#AnyClipPlayer", {clipID:'ryIJ7Yb4hYtn'}]);Angry chief: Captain William Diel (Philip Baker Hall)
Angriest quote: “It's a disgrace to me! It's a disgrace to my department!”
Anger level: About an eight.
***Possible HR issues: ***Subjecting Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong cop to Los Angeles irritant James Carter (Chris Tucker) may not be in the spirit of international co-operation.
Health problems? A serious case of buddycomedyitis.
***Badge and/or gun taken? ***Worse: he takes the Red Heat approach and gives Tucker a partner who doesn’t understand his banter.
He may look like he’s in his sixties but if we were to tell you that Captain Diel (Philip Baker Hall) is actually 31, you’d probably believe us, knowing what working with Chris Tucker’s motormouthed cop can do to man’s complexion. You can virtually see new wrinkles forming on his forehead as Carter (Tucker) spitballs yet another comedy riff. Sure, crime is rife in the City of Angels but no-one’s getting arrested until Carter’s finished his schtick. No wonder Diel looks like a man on the verge of an aneurysm.
Angry chief: Lieutenant Herb ‘Mac’ McMahon (Joe Morton)
Angriest quote: “You're fired! Everybody's fuckin' fired!”
Anger level: Stupidly furious.
***Possible HR issues: ***We’re pretty sure there’s a rule against firing everyone.
Health problems? Stress. A lot of stress.
Badge and/or gun taken: Nope, but he’ll have that cheap gold watch back, thank-you very much.
Holy hell in a handcart, Herb ‘Mac’ McMahon has his work cut out in this one. He’s got an explosive device in an express elevator, a crazed bomber who wants $3 million and, to top it off, a really first-base nickname. Seriously, “Mac” is the best they can do? No wonder he looks like a man who’s permanently trying to pass a Keanu-shaped kidney stone. He’s wise enough to realise that his two biggest ass-aches, Officer Jack Traven (Reeves) and Detective Harry Temple (Jeff Daniels), are also the key to getting out of his whole sorry mess, so he dons his S.W.A.T. gear and gets out into the field to lend a hand. Not just a big old ballbuster, then.
Angry chief: Captain Dickson (Ice Cube)
Angriest quote: “Clearly, I wasn't talking to you, big titties!”
Anger level: Thermonuclear.
Possible HR issue: Calling people “autistic” is a little pre-Rain Man.
Health problems? Korean Jesus helps him find a happy place.
Badge and/or gun taken: No-one is giving these idiots a gun.
“I know what you're thinkin’: angry black captain,” growls Cube’s angry black captain to his newest and possibly most annoying charges, Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill), who are thinking exactly that. “Well, let me tell you something! I'm black, and I worked my ass off to become captain, and sometimes I get angry. So suck a dick!” Of course, this is all an homage to the Inspector Todds and Herb McMahons of the world in a meta, Lieutenant-Dekker-in-Last-Action-Hero way, but Dickson’s still convincingly furious. Altogether now: “infiltrate the dealers, find the supplier!”
***Angry chief: ***Tom ‘Stinger’ Jordan (James Tolkan)
Angriest quote: “If you screw up just this much, you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong!”
Anger level: Butt-busting.
***Possible HR issues: ***Cigar smoking in a confined space. Overuse of the word “butt”.
Health problems? The admiral has been riding his ass hard. So, probable sore ass.
Wings taken? No, goddammit! He’s gotta give them their dream shot.
Not a cop, granted, but no ‘angry’ list would be complete without the grand vizier of the chewing out, the archdeacon of the dressing-down: Cmdr. Tom ‘Stinger’ Jordan, the unhappiest thing on the high seas since Red Beard got drunk and sat on his parrot. When we meet him in Top Gun he’s got a multitude of niggles: 1) Maverick’s ego is writing cheques his body can’t cash; 2) He’d like to bust Maverick’s butt but he can’t; 3) He’s got to send Maverick to Miramar; 4) He’s really pissed about it; 5) That was his last cigar.
***Angry chief: ***Commander Lou Donnelly (Peter Boyle)
Angriest quote: “Your gun Danko, now! Don't fuck with me!”
Anger level: Trying to look relaxed. Secretly seething.
Possible HR issues: No HR issues for this RH star.
***Health problems? ***Facing a heart bypass. Also, hypertension. Even his fish look a bit peaky.
Badge and/or gun taken: Yes! Danko has his gun confiscated.
Austrian oak and, um, Bel Air beech unite to annoy the hell out of Peter Boyle’s dangerously stressed police chief in this high-concept glasnost actioner. Commander Donnelly reckons he’s bought himself some breathing space when he teams up “Chicago’s craziest cop”, Art Ridzik (James Belushi), with Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in an odd-couple pairing with, believes Donnelly, “no downside”. This will give him time to “watch the fishes, water the plants… listen to pleasant sounds.” Except that Chicago’s craziest cop is just that and lo, Chicago gets totalled and all of Donnelly’s stress management goes out the window. “I was wrong about the downside,” he notes gloomily.
Angry chief: Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom)
Angriest quote: “Mistake... in a nudist camp? Idiot! Nincompoop! Lunatic!”
Anger level: “Furieux!”
Possible HR issues: Shoots a subordinate, regularly self-harms and plots to kill one of his staff. So, plenty.
***Health problems? ***Severed thumb. Oh, and he’s completely unhinged. The two may not be unrelated.
Badge and/or gun taken? If Clouseau had a gun and Dreyfus took it, he’d shoot him with it.
Bearing in mind that Herbert Lom’s bipolar police commissioner, Dreyfus, has another five films of Clouseau chaos to endure, he should probably pace himself a little better than this. The white squall of unadulterated fury he unleashes upon Peter Sellers’ hapless detective is matched only by the grudging respect he feels for the sheer scale of destruction wrecked by Clouseau. “Give me ten men like Clouseau and I could destroy the world,” he claims with a maniacal cackle. Thank goodness – for all our sakes – that there’s only one Clouseau.
Angry chief: Pepe Serna (Lt. Raymond Garcia)
Angriest quote: “It’s not just a job, it’s a FUCKING ADVENNNTURE!”
Anger level: Hoooooooh boy.
***Possible HR issue: ***They might advise that he avoid the “damn yellow rookie” talk.
***Health problems? ***This a man whose face is about to explode. Stand clear.
Badge and/or gun taken: No, but only because he’s *so *far off the grid that they can’t find him.
Unleashing an in absentia bollocking of monstrous proportions, Pepe Serna’s scarlet-faced lieutenant brings the rage to this middling Clint Eastwood thriller – and you won’t need us to tell you that Charlie Sheen is the cause of the tantrum. His rogue cop, David Ackerman, has burned down a bar and taken on a German crime baron without so much as a cursory glance at the chapter of the rulebook entitled ‘Taking Down German Crime Barons’. Ackerman, an off-the-reservation nutjob with tiger blood running through his veins, might want to skip his next annual review to give this boss time to calm down.
***Angry chief: ***Police Captain (R. Lee Ermey)
***Angriest quote: ***“You've left unfinished business before.”
Anger level: Mild-to-irate.
***Possible HR issues: ***Fewer than in Full Metal Jacket.
Health problems? A surprisingly clean bill of health.
Badge and/or gun taken? Nope, although one of his charges is about to hand theirs in.
A no-nonsense veteran of the Vietnam war and a Stanley Kubrick film set, R. Lee Ermey is intimately familiar with anger. As Seven’s unnamed police chief, he musters a hearty mix of deep-seated annoyance and world-weary frustration. He’s got his detectives, Washington (Morgan Freeman) and Mills (Brad Pitt), spinning harebrained theories about a serial killer inspired by the seven deadly sins, although the one with the theories doesn’t want the case and the one who wants the case doesn’t get the theories. Plus, it’s always raining. It’s enough to give a man a nasty headache.
***Angry chief: ***Lieutenant John Bergin (Chi McBride)
***Angriest quote: ***“What is the matter with you? Traffic Ops tells me you're driving your car manually. You ran two trucks off the road!”
Anger level: If robots are attacking, high. If he’s got a beer or a cigar in his hand, low.
***Possible HR issue: ***Stop smoking indoors! This is the future, darn it.
Health problems? No-one has health problems in the future!
Badge and/or gun taken? He tries. He fails. Incidentally, Bergin definitely thought about taking those “Converse All-Stars, vintage 2004” off Will Smith’s feet, if only to get him to shut up about them.
Lieutenant John Bergin isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He equates leaping, punching, killing machines with kitchen equipment – “That’s impossible! It’s a can opener, for God’s sake!” – and gets horror monsters mixed up in a way that beggars belief – “Frankenstein, Wolfman, Dracula, whatever… shit, it's over” – but his biggest mistake was not believing Will Smith’s Del Spooner when he told him that everyone’s favourite plastic pals want to murder us all. Fortunately, Bergin’s crotchety top-cop grumblings are ignored by Spooner, who goes on to save the day and utter the immortal words, “You have so got to die.” Hoo…ray?
Angry chiefs: Sergeant Second Grade Daniel "Hondo" Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) / Captain Thomas Fuller (Larry Poindexter)
Angriest quote: “How the hell can I trust a man who won't eat a good old-fashioned American hot dog?” / “That's it, you're outta here, Gamble. You're gone, Gamble, you're gone!”
***Anger level: ***Understandable caring-for-the-welfare-of-his-team anger / I’D FIRE YOU IF ONLY THE COMMISSIONER WOULD LET ME! anger.
Possible HR issue: Almost always armed / that vein in his forehead might burst at any moment.
Badge and/or gun taken? Captain Fuller decides to forgo firing Police Officer Third Grade Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) and Police Officer Third Grade Jim Street (Colin Farrell) and demotes them to the gun cage instead. Gamble quits; Street accepts the decision calmly. The civilian they wounded remains wounded.
Though S.W.A.T. feels like an impressive-for-TV-but-mediocre-for-film telly pilot, it is all about policemen, so you get double the angry cop for your cinemagoing buck. First up is Captain Fuller, your typical frustrated deskhound whose superiors tell him to keep using officers he’d otherwise fire. Then there’s S.W.A.T. head honcho Hondo, who has a fine line in tough love when it comes to the miscreant shotgun-toters under his command. Together, they’re good-angry cop and bad-angry cop, so by rights, they should be the best interrogators in the business. Amount of joint interrogating they do in the film: diddly-S.Q.U.A.T.
***Angry chief: ***Chief Sterns (Raymond Serra)
Angriest quote: It’s a dead heat between “Just what is it you hope to accomplish out there, besides BUSTING MY CHOPS?” and “Are you tryin' to tell me HOW TO DO MY JOB?”
Anger level: Turtally off the charts (sorry).
Possible HR issue: Burst eardrums are no doubt commonplace.
***Health problems? ***He’s allergic to turtles. What are the chances?
Badge and/or gun taken? If April O’Neil had a journalist badge, he’d take it, stamp on it, then set it on fire. April O’Neil has no journalist badge.
A sweaty blob of LOUD NOISES and policing gibberish, Chief Sterns reflects his cartoon roots with lines that feel like they were delivered entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS. If he’s not getting tongue-tied by technical twaddle – “We are presently executing a plan of redeployment that will minimise response time while maximising coordination between patrol units and a decentralised networking scheme” – he’s most happy/angry screaming at people down the phone, on the street or, preferably, at the precinct. April O’Neil’s current record for staying in his office is one minute, seven seconds: we doubt you could beat it.
***Angry chief: ***Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor)
***Angriest quote: ***“You know what my problem with you is? You're reckless. Those two men trusted you to lead them as a team. Where were you?”
Anger level: Surprisingly calm, considering the apocalyptic destruction Hellboy dishes out on a regular basis.
Possible HR issue: His job technically doesn’t exist, which may invalidate his pension plan.
Health problems? A swollen fist (from table-banging).
***Badge and/or gun taken? ***Badges handed in (by the very end): four, from Hellboy, Liz, Abe, and Krauss. As concerns taking HB’s gun, you try taking Big Baby away from Big Red.
The Bureau Of Paranormal Research And Defence… there is no such thing. What Manning is in charge of is government-funded, sure, but it’s a secret – a dirty secret, if you ask him. Much of his job is PR work, speaking to television chat show hosts and asking, “Why is it, in these pictures of aliens, UFOs, the yeti, Hellboy… why is it they're always out of focus?” as well as paying off witnesses, destroying CCTV footage and facing the music when signed photographs of Hellboy turn up on eBay. So when Hellboy does attract attention – and it’s something he’s bound to do – that’s when Malling gets red-faced (in a matter of speaking). But it’s not his biggest button-push… that’s YouTube. Do not get him started on YouTube.
***Angry chief: ***Captain Logan (Dan Hedaya)
Angriest quote: “Let me tell you something. If I find you in the city, I'm gonna have you arrested. If you step one foot in this station house, I'm gonna have you shot.”
Anger level: Comically high.
***Possible HR issue: ***He maintains that one of the best reasons to be a cop is that you can shoot people and get away with it. Probably best if he stays away from the press.
Health problems? None as yet – but give it time around these two.
Badge and/or gun taken: In a fashion, yes: he insists Ray (Gregory Hines) and Danny (Billy Crystal) take their vacation as soon as possible, but comes to regret that decision.
Captain Logan is full of well-primed put-downs, ready to be launched as soon as Ray and Danny – the former in a Tampa Bay Buccaneers baseball cap; the latter in a piece of novelty headgear where a foam shark is leaping out of his forehead – walk into his office. “You are the detectives. Go and detect,” is a typical example quip, as is “You're getting careful, aren't you? Careful gets you killed in this line of work. You think about getting shot and you get shot.” But because this is a Billy Crystal movie, there isn’t that much danger/tension/real fear, so for all his barbs, you still know he’s only in it for the gags. That, and the doughnuts, of course.
Angry chief: Captain Jerome McKay (Bradford Dillman)
Angriest quote: “That’s it, Callahan, you’ve just got yourself a 60-day suspension.”
Anger level: Steam is leaking out of his ears.
Possible HR issue: If someone tells him “Personnel is for assholes”, he won’t respond well.
Health problems? A doctor should definitely have a look at the whole ear/steam situation.
***Badge and/or gun taken: ***“Give me your star.” / “There’s a seven-pointed suppository, Captain.” / “What did you say?” / “I said, ‘Stick it in your ass.’” So yes.
His hair may be thick, his ‘tache fulsome and his voice gravelly, but Captain McKay is just not capable of standing up to the even-gravellier-voiced Inspector Harry Callahan. As the Big (but perhaps not sufficiently Bad) Wolf of San Francisco policing, he’s got plenty of huff and puff, but when it comes to actually blowing Harry’s proverbial house down, The Enforcer will always stay firm, then point out how bad McKay’s halitosis is. Advantage: Callahan.
***Angry chief: ***Chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger)
***Angriest quote: ***“Boy, it would give me a world of satisfaction to horse whip you, Virgil!”
Anger level: It varies from middling to racist to less racist to non-racist to calm.
Possible HR issue: In the late '60s, HR can’t hear you scream.
Health problems? If racism is a health problem, then yes.
Badge and/or gun taken? After the slapping incident{
To look at him, you wouldn’t think Chief Gillespie was such a hot head. He wears his police cap at a jaunty angle – a couple of sizes too small, to boot – and his ‘60s shades are a hippyish shade of yellow. There’s gum always in his mouth and sarsaparilla on his desk, which you might associate with a chilled-out cat. You would be wrong. A thoroughly southern Mississippi cop, Gillespie wears his bigotry pretty brazenly, but after meeting Mr. Virgil Tibbs, he changes his mind. Still, that doesn’t quell his hunger for a closed case, a hunger that normally manifests itself in screaming blue murder whoever happens to be nearby.
Angry chief: Captain Frank Daniels (Bruce McGill)
Angriest quote: “And now you have single handedly screwed up my whole operation…”
***Anger level: ***Machiavellian.
***Possible HR issue: ***SPOILER ALERT – he’s corrupt, so yep, there’s an HR issue. Also a question for Internal Affairs.
Health problems? Exit wounds.
Badge and/or gun taken? Relocation, relocation, relocation.
At the beginning of this awkwardly-titled 2001 thriller, Steven Seagal’s last big studio movie – tagline: ‘This is gonna hurt’ – our hero Orin Boyd is reprimanded by Captain Daniels for saving the Vice-President’s life… in the wrong way. Disobeying direct orders, the maverick martial artist-cum-cop kills all the militants who were after VPOTUS, but doesn’t get a ticker tape parade. Instead, he is hair-dryered by his boss and, with his skull rug still flapping in the air, bumped to the 15th precinct where he swiftly meets another angry chief, Annette Mulcahy (Jill Hennessy), who sends him to anger management lessons. You probably imagine that an anger management session with Steven Seagal wouldn’t end well, and you’d be right, with more than a couple of desks getting snapped in two. See also: pool cues, cleavers and, of course, bones{
Angry chief: Police Chief (Alan Arkin)
Angriest quote: “You screw up one more time, I'm going to kick your spaghetti-bending butt back to Milan!”
***Anger level: ***Unbelievable but well intentioned.
***Possible HR issue: ***You shouldn’t charge acting lessons on expenses, frankly.
Health problems? Stage fright.
***Badge and/or gun taken: ***Neither, though that no doubt happened in his improv classes.
Tony Giardino (Anthony LaPaglia) is bored with his humdrum life as a cop in San Francisco. He wants to be Dirty Harry, but instead gets paperwork, more paperwork and criminals happily confessing to crimes. To improve the situation, he asks his boss (Alan Arkin) to play the part of a VERY ANGRY CAPTAIN to add a bit of spice to proceedings. The resulting pseudo-aggro – “Back off, Italian boy! This is too big for ya!” and “You screw this one up and you’ll be writing parking tickets for the rest of your life!” – is tempered somewhat by his post-performance post-mortem{
Angry chief: M (Robert Brown)
***Angriest quote: ***“Spare me this sentimental rubbish!”
Fury level: Pipe-puffingly tense.
***Possible HR issues: ***He let an angry Welshman loose in Florida!
***Health problems? ***Yellow teeth and, eventually, too much egg on face.
**Badge taken? **Licence revoked! Weapon handed over! Okay, not the last one, as Bond lands a blow to his assistant and leaps over the railings and into the undergrowth. But still! Licence revoked!
Bond wants to resign. “We’re not a country club, 007!” So instead, M cancels his beloved Licence To Kill, forgetting that this results in the same thing 007’s resignation would. Though M is not a an angry policeman – he’s a not-best-pleased Head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service – this is such a significant cinematic “Your gun and your badge!” moment that there was no way to ignore it. Plus, this one has a killer pun in the form of “I guess it’s a… Farewell To Arms”, which immediately sets it above the likes of Dragnet, The Bone Collector, Robocop 3 et al.