This Friday, with the release of Superbad, the movie cop will get another definition entirely: cops are rejected losers masking their social inabilities with a badge, a gun and a power trip at every call.
In celebration of movie cops, here is a list of good ones and bad ones for you to ponder until your next speeding ticket.
—Michael Clawson
Good Cop
Harry Callahan, Dirty Harry
Rank: Inspector, 1971-1988Police record: Consistent debate continues on how Harry Callahan became so dirty, but it may have something to do with him bashing in the heads of innocent-until-proven-guilty perps, shooting without provocation and an all-around bad attitude. Still, dirty or not, he gets the job done on the streets of San Francisco.
Quote: “Go ahead, make my day” or “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
Required viewing: The good inspector’s menacing reveal in Dirty Harry, where he blasts bank robbers with his .44 Magnum, “the most powerful handgun in the world.” It gave us the phrase, “Do I feel lucky?” … punk.
Captain Renault, Casablanca
Rank: Captain, 1942Police record: Everyone makes a big deal about Rick’s sacrifice for poor ol’ Ilsa, but they neglect the real hero in Casablanca, puppet police official and would-be Nazi henchman Captain Renault (Claude Rains), who turns out to be good after all when he shoots Major Strasser on the jetway.
Quote: “Ricky, I’m going to miss you. Apparently you’re the only one in Casablanca with less scruples than I.”
Required viewing: Captain Renault and Rick sharing an intimate moment — the beginnings of a “beautiful friendship” — over the steaming corpse of a Nazi stooge.
Serpico
Rank: Officer, 1973Police record: Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) was no hero cop, but he stood up against all the bad cops, and that has a lot of pull on this list. If there’s anything that makes you hate police, it’s the cops that think they own the world because they wear a badge. Serpico tried to change all that.
Quote: “The reality is that we do not wash our own laundry — it just gets dirtier.”
Required viewing: The facial hair. It appears halfway through and gets out of control by the film’s end. At one point his own colleagues don’t recognize him.
RoboCop
Rank: Officer, 1987-1993Police record: Born from the bits of flesh leftover from a dead cop, RoboCop exists in a state of perpetual crime prevention, with a rapid-fire gun in his hip and every law encoded in his green-tinted visor.
Quote: “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”
Required viewing: Two thugs attempt to assault a woman in downtown Detroit. RoboCop subdues one with a trick shot through the woman’s skirt.
John McClane, Die Hard
Rank: Detective, 1988-2007Police record: Wily and unpredictable, and always in the wrong place at the wrong time, John McClane (Bruce Willis) did things his own way, which usually meant blowing things up around the holidays.
Quote: “Welcome to the party, pal.” (We can’t print the best one)
Required viewing: McClane surgically operating on a guy’s kneecaps with a submachine gun in a famous boardroom scene in the original Die Hard.
Don Orville, 3rd Rock From the Sun
Rank: Officer, 1996-2001Police record: He wasn’t in a movie — 3rd Rock was TV, great TV — but Don Orville (Wayne Knight) is one of the great televisions cops. He rarely made arrests, couldn’t pass a physical, succumbed to the donut stereotype and often used his job to impress one rather leggy girlfriend. Now that’s a cop!
Quote: “Sally, I’m a cop. I’ve got keen instincts. And right now, my instincts are telling me that … I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
Required viewing: Don and Dick (John Lithgow) playing good cop/bad cop on a suspect. It fails, so they then try bad cop/good cop, bad cop/bad cop and good cop/good cop to no avail.
Popeye Doyle, The French Connection
Rank: Detective, 1971-1975Police record: The short-fused Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle wasn’t the nicest or most non-discriminatory cop, but he got the job done except for that guy with the French connections.
Quote: “All right, Popeye’s here! Get your hands on your heads, get off the bar, and get on the wall.”
Required viewing: Popeye stripping a car for dope. Check the rocker panels, Popeye.
Frank Drebin, The Naked Gun
Rank: Lieutenant, 1982-1994Police record: Bumbling fool Frank Drebin was no great cop, but somehow he always caught the bad guy, even if it was by accident. He often violated police procedure and basic civil rights — he thought Miranda Rights was a person — yet in a spoof his ineptitude clicked in all the right places.
Quote: “Wilma, I promise you, whatever scum did this, not one man on this force will rest one minute until he’s behind bars. Now, let’s grab a bite to eat.”
Required viewing: Drebin excuses himself from a police press conference to go to the restroom … and forgets to take off his wireless microphone!
Bad Cop
Chief Wiggum, The Simpsons
Rank: Police Chief, 1989-presentPolice record: Dim-bulb Wiggum puts all other cops to shame. He openly profiles the people of Springfield, uses his department-issued pistol for cracking nuts, abuses taxpayer money and regularly accepts bribes (his badge reads “cash bribes only”). Don’t even get me started on his son, little Ralphie Wiggum.
Quote: “All right, Simpson, you just bought yourself a 417, pointing out police stupidity. Or is that a 413? No, a 413 is a dog and … um … you’re in trouble, pal.”
Required viewing: The episode “Homer’s Triple Bypass” features an extensive COPS parody with Wiggum and his officers failing to catch any real crooks.
Hank Quinlan, Touch of Evil
Rank: Captain, 1958Police record: Bloated and drunk Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) was more of a slob than a bad cop. Packing his face with fatty foods and whiskey, Quinlan only took time away from his slow demise to frame suspected criminals and belittle Mexicans living near the US border. He meets his end in front of his only friend, a man he betrayed through the whole film.
Quote: “I don’t speak Mexican.”
Required viewing: The frantic and dizzying sequence in a hotel room where Quinlan plants dynamite in a bathroom and verbally and physically harasses a couple who may not be guilty.
The cops of Superbad
Rank: Officers, 2007Police record: Officers Slater and Michaels (Seth Rogen and Bill Hader) obviously don’t care. Why else would they have a drunken shoot-off on a city street with an underage teen with a fake ID? Besides that, they also fake police reports, use the breathalyzer machine as their own arcade game, abuse police privileges in bars and restaurants, and use their cruiser for a makeshift demolition derby.
Quote: Officer Michaels breaking up a party: “We assume you all have crack and guns.”
Required viewing: The two cops actually believing a teen’s fake ID, even as the name on the altered license reads McLovin’.
Norman Stansfield, Léon
Rank: DEA agent, 1994Police record: Stansfield is a madman — plain and simple. The crooked narcotic agent loves his classical music (Mozart and Beethoven), his under-the-table drug deals and frightening outbursts of explosive violence. Here’s a man so unhinged from society even his medication has stopped working.
Quote: “I like these calm little moments before the storm. It reminds me of Beethoven.”
Required viewing: A hitman. A belt of grenades. A handful of pins. Boom!
Officer Alonzo Harris, Training Day
Rank: Officer, 2001Police record: Officer Alonzo (Denzel Washington, in an Oscar-winning role) opened up a scary world of gangs, corruption and drug trafficking, all within the Los Angeles Police Department. Scary thing is, we didn’t need a movie to tell us that.
Quote: “To protect the sheep you gotta catch the wolf, and it takes a wolf to catch a wolf.”
Required viewing: Alonzo giving his famous King Kong speech to gangbangers.
T-1000, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Rank: Officer (and Skynet machine), 1991Police record: Sent back in time to dispose of a rebel leader while he’s a teen, the T-1000 has no heart, no soul and no sense of duty as a cop. That’s because he’s made of shape-shifting liquid metal. He begins the film killing a cop and taking his form. He’s one of the few movie cops who actually wears a police uniform as opposed to a trenchcoat and tie.
Quote: Pickings are slim because he rarely talks, but here’s one inside a helicopter: “Get out.”
Required viewing: The T-1000 commandeering a semi and ramming it off an overpass is pretty sweet.
Will Teasle, Rambo: First Blood
Rank: Sheriff, 1982Police record: Teasle was probably a good sheriff before ex-special forces commando John Rambo wandered into his sleepy hamlet. Then Teasle (Brian Dennehy) had to go get all rough on the Vietnam vet. Rambo just retaliated. (A similar cop would be Sterling Hayden’s Godfather cop, Captain McKluskey, who single handedly, literally, started a mob legacy in Michael Corleone)
Quote: “Whatever possessed God in heaven to make a man like Rambo?”
Required viewing: Teasle whining and carrying on with Rambo’s handler, Col. Trautman. Teasle asks: “Are you telling me that 200 of our men against your boy is a no-win situation for us?” Yesiree, sheriff.
The police in The Blues Brothers
Rank: Mostly officers, some sergeants, captain and chiefs, 1980Police record: These guys weren’t so much bad cops as just bad drivers. Modern police practice dictates “no high-speed chases through shopping malls.” Apparently that rule wasn’t in place in 1980 as Chicago’s finest destroy cruiser after cruiser chasing Jake and Elwood.
Quote: “Hut, hut, hut, hut, hut.”
Required viewing: The finale of the film, in which the police are joined by an army, to arrest the Blues Brothers.
Honorable Mentions
Here are two actors who’ve played cops on more than one occasion:
• Ray Liotta — Hero Wanted, Smokin’ Aces, Identity, John Q, Narc, Cop Land, Unlawful Entry, Hannibal
• Harvey Keitel — Thelma & Louise, Bad Lieutenant, National Treasure, Rising Sun, Cop Land, Clockers, Red Dragon
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