Joseph Wambaugh served as cinematic executor (scriptwriter and producer) of his own best-seller in order to ensure that his evangelistic vision of the policeman's reality was in no way distorted or diluted. It is, however, somewhat dimmed in the dark, dark cinematography. And it is also somewhat side-tracked in the lavishly detailed portrait of a psychopathic cop killer (James Woods). With his close-cropped, concentration-camp hairdo, his gold tooth, his unctuous Hallmark Card sentiments about family togetherness, his trenchcoat and mascaraed mole that serve as his disguise during a liquor store holdup, the little hop-and-skip in his gait that he believes enables him to increase speed without attracting attention, the "therefores" and "moreovers" and the like that punctuate his highfalutin speech, and so on and so on, he makes this movie work best as a case study in self-delusion. Wambaugh never builds up the cop characters to a point where they can compete on equal footing with this goon, and even his narrative, based on fact, begins to crumble in the latter half when it tries to trace how the human values in this sordid case got lost in the legal labyrinth. Still, Wambaugh undiluted can always be recommended for medicinal purposes, even when for none other. With John Savage, Franklyn Seales, and Ronny Cox; directed by Harold Becker. (1979) — Duncan Shepherd
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