It is New York, so a policeman
gets killed in the opening scene - the usual stuff. Headlines scream
'Cop Killer' while Lt. Fred O'Connor settles down in his palatial, sparsely
furnished apartment with expensive cigar in hand and surveys the city
through open windows: the contented corrupt cop at a home bought with
illegal earnings.
But his world is soon disturbed
- the usual stuff. The person who eventually turns Ol' Fred on his head
is a certain Leo Smith, played by one John Lydon, former alias Johnny
Rotten; Sex Pistol turned minstrel and wastrel in America, numerous
previous convictions, acting ability still to be proven, your Honour.
This Italian made film as
Ennio Morricone's striking chords colliding with sudden close-ups, very
reminiscent of the Sergio Leone Westerns he scored in the late 60's
and I expected Clint Eastwood unshaven, crinkly-eyed visage to appear
at any moment, but no. By the end of the film, I wish he had appeared
preferably with a loaded Colt in hand.
Johnny, I hardly knew you.
It had to happen, I suppose, but did you really have to play your first
role in movies as a twisted youth with morbid tastes who gets his kicks
from bread-knife licks - mainly on cops?
The original model as a Pistol had a total grudge against society and
this role only narrows the sights to a grudge against the police. You've
done the expected at last, John.
Smith (Lydon) comes ringing
at O'Connors door and claims that he is the cop killer. All collapsed
shoulders, funny hat and shades, Lydon stands in complete contrast to
the big, beefy Keitel who listens in disbelief. No wonder, he's like
a strolling plague, this wee boy: walking in the shadow of death, glazed
eyes and pouting mouth, slowly pronouncing the words in a strange life.
Now that's unusual.
But it's not exciting. There's
hardly any individual quirks to hang onto and his displays of temperament
are invariably stilted. Lydon presents himself as a blank cheque, on
which no one has bothered to write.
There are good moments: just
following his appearance at Keitel's front door, Smith/Lydon tells O'Connor
that he's been watching him for months, and that he daren't tell his
colleagues about these crimes or he'll inform on O'Connor's corruption.
Fred proceeds to beat him up. Smith is a helpless rag in his hands and
O'Connor eventually forces him into a gas oven, a quivering but somehow
defiant wreck. The tough, amoral cop can't bring himself to kill his
strange visitor and locks in the bathroom where he keeps him tied and
fed like a dog occasionally returning to watch or speak to him. So they
become prisoners of each other's obsession.
Things turn a little more
bizarre when O'Connor accidentally kills his flat-mate / collaborator
in front of Smith. Then he forces the youth to slit the corpse's throat
in a nearby park. He can then shoot the pallid one, deliver him as the
cop killer caught red handed and it's back to cigars and the view. Clever,
huh?
No chance: at this point
the film stars stretching credibility to the limit and the plot is the
ludicrous. The film is dreary. Just cheap holidays in other people's
misery. |