An anomaly, maybe an antilogy: a Sylvester Stallone film for critics. Written and directed by James Mangold (of the low-budget independent Heavy), it is a Sidney Lumet-style expose of police misconduct, in which the action star sets out as a resigned sideline-sitter, an overweight wannabe cop, hampered with one bad ear and, for the duration of the movie, a gash on the bridge of his nose from a drunken one-car accident. Gazing longingly at the lights of the big city across the river, and soothing his aching soul with Bruce Springsteen LPs, he must content himself to be the token lawman in a crime-free New Jersey town populated predominantly by members of the NYPD, who treat him as no more than a team mascot or water boy. It takes some getting used to, takes some getting over the feeling that he is putting on an act, lying low, playing possum, lulling the opposition - la Columbo. But his persistence and consistency -- his penguin-like waddle, his bovine cud-chewing, his mashed-potatoes face and his melting mouth and eyes -- eventually convince us. And after all, it's not as if Stallone was ever very convincing as bare-chested Brawny Man. He was always a cartoon figure. The struggle to accept him in the part, even if finally successful, is in any event hardly worth the effort. Mangold's storytelling is congested, garbled, gabby, and uncompelling, en route to an incongruous O.K. Corral shootout at dawn. The overall result is little better than dull, a slight step-up for Stallone nonetheless. With Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Robert Patrick, Michael Rapaport, Annabella Sciorra. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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