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Ten Maverick Cops
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Guarding the peace, upholding justice and thwarting wrongdoers might be essential to the smooth running of society, but it doesn’t make for a great movie hero. Sometimes, cops have to bend the rules a little to get results. From a potential rogue’s gallery of dozens, here are Volta’s favourite ten cops who flaunt the law in order to uphold it.
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10. Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
An early example of the type, and very daring for the times, Dana Andrews plays hard-boiled Detective Mark Dixon in Otto Preminger’s noir thriller. A pragmatic cop who scorns authority and viciously batters his suspects to get them to talk, Dixon wants to be good, but he’s all bad. When he kills a criminal in self-defence and nobody believes his story, he is forced to commit even more terrible deeds in order to cover up what he did. This gritty drama would be the last of five films that Andrews made with co-star Gene Tierney in the 1940s.
9. Bullitt (1968)
Peter Yates’ seminal 60s police procedural is best remembered for it’s thrilling car chase through the streets of San Francisco, but up to that point, Steve McQueen’s rogue cop Bullitt was doing just about everything wrong. Sent to protect a witness, he sees his charge assassinated before creating a rift with his superior officers, attempting to track down the bad guy and then watching him escape from an airport with a bag full of money, all guns blazing. McQueen, who barely says two words throughout the entire adventure, is the textbook example of all guts and no glory.
8. Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006)
A Québecois Canadian take on the maverick cop, Erik Canuel’s comedy thriller has two policemen with very different methods, one insanely reckless, the other deeply ethical, teaming up to solve the murder of a high-profile ice hockey team owner. Winner of a host of Genie Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars), the film ended sex-comedy Porky’s 25 year reign as the highest grossing Canadian movie at the Canadian box office.
7. Bad Lieutenant (1992)
“Gambler, Addict, Killer, Cop” goes the tag-line for Abel Ferrara’s tough-as-nails examination of a dissolute New York police officer, played by Harvey Keitel, who tries to change his ways when he investigates a brutal assault on a novice nun. Shot in just two weeks on a budget of less than a million dollars, Ferrara’s explosively gritty film was one of the most controversial films of the 1990s thanks largely to Keitel’s astonishing no-holds-barred performance as the anonymous Lieutenant.
6. Dirty Harry (1971)
Racing around San Francisco with an enormous gun and a ruthless sneer, Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry Callahan doesn’t care much about habeas corpus, Miranda rights or any other rules of law-enforcement. Stretching regulations beyond breaking point, Dirty Harry lives up to his nickname when he tries to track down a serial-killer named Scorpio who has taken to shooting random strangers. Director Don Seigel’s story was inspired by the real-life Zodiac case, later the basis for David Fincher’s 2007 drama and still unsolved.
5. Hard Boiled (1992)
The clue is in the name, really. Chow Yun Fat plays Inspector Tequila in John Woo’s stunning 1992 Hong Kong cop thriller, the final installment of Woo’s loose police trilogy that includes A Better Tomorrow and The Killer. The blistering story has Fat play a grizzled veteran cop who teams up with an undercover agent to capture a dangerous gangster and his heavily-armed crew. The international success of the film saw Woo decamp to Hollywood, where he would bring his stylised, hyper-kinetic techniques to a series of studio blockbusters.
4. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Eddie Murphy breaks all the rules as motor-mouth Detroit detective Axel Foley in the first installment of the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy. When we first meet him, Axel has stolen a truckload of contraband cigarettes without authorisation, before wrecking it. He is lambasted by his Chief of Police, who tells him he is on his last warning, but rather than toe the line he disappears to Los Angeles, where despite further warnings and threats, he becomes involved in the investigation into his friend’s murder.
3. Lethal Weapon (1987)
Mel Gibson and Danny Glover play chalk-and-cheese detective partners in Richard Donner’s buddy cop comedy, the first produced screenplay from maverick cop specialist Shane Black. Unwillingly paired off to investigate a gang of drug-smugglers, Gibson’s half-crazy Riggs and Glover’s cautious veteran Murtough build a lasting friendship as they survive a series of incredibly risky manoeuvres. Donner would go on to direct all four instalments of the Lethal Weapon franchise, which concluded twelve years later with 1998s Lethal Weapon 4.
2. The Guard (2011)
Brendan Gleeson gives the performance of his career to date as Gerry Boyle, a drug-taking, prostitute-frequenting, kimono-wearing Connemara cop in John Martin McDonough’s comedy thriller. Sparks fly when unorthodox Gerry is teamed up with Don Cheadle’s straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett, brought to the rural community to investigate a shipment of cocaine landing on the remote Western coast from Columbia. Acclaimed on release, and nominated for umpteen international awards, The Guard is the highest-grossing independent film of all time at the Irish box office.
1. The French Connection (1971)
Gene Hackman made his career breakthrough with his extraordinary performance as rebel cop Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s story of the search for a gang importing heroin into New York. A short-tempered, alcoholic racist with an enormous chip on his shoulder, Popeye is nevertheless totally committed to his job and willing to risk everything to bring the criminals to justice. Based on a real-life investigation, the film won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hackman and Best Director for Friedkin.
