DIRTY COPS
11 films in this collection
A SEASON OF LAW AND DISORDER
The badge is supposed to separate the cops from the crooks. DIRTY COPS is devoted to films where that thin blue line gets blurred, and all cops are bastards.
Corruption, brutality, blackmail, dirty money, hard drinking and bad intentions run through a strain of crime cinema in which the law is less a moral force than another racket. These are underseen movies of cops on the take, cops coming apart and cops crossing lines.
From grimy precinct rooms and rain slicked city streets to narcotics busts, protection rackets and deals made in the shadows, DIRTY COPS explores the particularly nasty pleasures of police cinema once law and order have gone sour. Hardboiled, morally murky and often savagely cynical, these are films where everybody has a price, authority is dangerous and doing the right thing may be the quickest way to get killed.
Welcome to DIRTY COPS, a season of badges, bullets and bad intentions.
The badge is supposed to separate the cops from the crooks. DIRTY COPS is devoted to films where that thin blue line gets blurred, and all cops are bastards.
Corruption, brutality, blackmail, dirty money, hard drinking and bad intentions run through a strain of crime cinema in which the law is less a moral force than another racket. These are underseen movies of cops on the take, cops coming apart and cops crossing lines.
From grimy precinct rooms and rain slicked city streets to narcotics busts, protection rackets and deals made in the shadows, DIRTY COPS explores the particularly nasty pleasures of police cinema once law and order have gone sour. Hardboiled, morally murky and often savagely cynical, these are films where everybody has a price, authority is dangerous and doing the right thing may be the quickest way to get killed.
Welcome to DIRTY COPS, a season of badges, bullets and bad intentions.
CHAMPAGNE AND BULLETS
(1993, USA, John De Hart & James Paradise)
99 mins18
Former police officer Rick Bode is forced from the department after refusing to participate in the schemes of corrupt judge Norman. Reunited with his old partner Huck, Rick sets out to expose a criminal network involving blackmail, murder and a satanic cult. Along the way he finds time for romance, martial arts, country music, spiritual contemplation and the irresistible dance sensation known as the Shimmy Slide.
Written, produced by and starring John De Hart, CHAMPAGNE AND BULLETS is an extraordinary vanity-project action epic whose ambition is matched only by its profound eccentricity. Its awkward dialogue, sudden tonal shifts and complete sincerity have made it a cult phenomenon, especially in its alternate incarnation as GETEVEN. Far more than a conventional bad-movie curiosity, this is personal cinema in its purest and most bewildering form.
Written, produced by and starring John De Hart, CHAMPAGNE AND BULLETS is an extraordinary vanity-project action epic whose ambition is matched only by its profound eccentricity. Its awkward dialogue, sudden tonal shifts and complete sincerity have made it a cult phenomenon, especially in its alternate incarnation as GETEVEN. Far more than a conventional bad-movie curiosity, this is personal cinema in its purest and most bewildering form.
Upcoming Screenings
RICOCHET
(1991, USA, Russell Mulcahy)
102 mins18
One arrest makes Nick Styles a television hero. Years later, the man he put away comes back with a plan to destroy everything the cameras helped him build: career, family, reputation and trust in his own mind.
Denzel Washington and John Lithgow turn Russell Mulcahy’s revenge thriller into a ferocious contest between charisma and obsession. Lithgow’s villain does not just want his enemy dead; he wants control of the story everyone tells about him. Fast, lurid and wildly excessive, RICOCHET pushes studio action towards a full-blown media nightmare.
Denzel Washington and John Lithgow turn Russell Mulcahy’s revenge thriller into a ferocious contest between charisma and obsession. Lithgow’s villain does not just want his enemy dead; he wants control of the story everyone tells about him. Fast, lurid and wildly excessive, RICOCHET pushes studio action towards a full-blown media nightmare.
Upcoming Screenings
COP (VHS)
(1988, USA, James B. Harris)
110 mins18
Lloyd Hopkins sees connections nobody else can see. The trouble is that the LAPD detective also sees rules as somebody else’s problem. Hunting a killer, he pushes his methods, marriage and already threadbare ethics towards breaking point.
James Woods brings terrifying conviction to James B. Harris’s stripped-down adaptation of James Ellroy’s BLOOD ON THE MOON. The case matters, but so does the unsettling pleasure Hopkins takes in being right. A cold, abrasive Los Angeles thriller in which detective brilliance and institutional brutality become dangerously difficult to separate.
Presented on VHS.
James Woods brings terrifying conviction to James B. Harris’s stripped-down adaptation of James Ellroy’s BLOOD ON THE MOON. The case matters, but so does the unsettling pleasure Hopkins takes in being right. A cold, abrasive Los Angeles thriller in which detective brilliance and institutional brutality become dangerously difficult to separate.
Presented on VHS.
Upcoming Screenings
BAD LIEUTENANT
(1992, USA, Abel Ferrara)
96 mins18
The badge buys him access to everything he is destroying himself with: drugs, gambling, sex and power. Then a shocking crime forces a corrupt New York cop towards a reckoning he cannot drink, bet or bully his way out of.
Harvey Keitel gives a terrifyingly exposed performance in Abel Ferrara’s bruising journey through addiction, guilt and the possibility of grace. Street-level grime collides with religious anguish; there is no comfortable distance from this man’s collapse. A ferocious New York film that makes redemption feel as dangerous as damnation.
Harvey Keitel gives a terrifyingly exposed performance in Abel Ferrara’s bruising journey through addiction, guilt and the possibility of grace. Street-level grime collides with religious anguish; there is no comfortable distance from this man’s collapse. A ferocious New York film that makes redemption feel as dangerous as damnation.
Upcoming Screenings
FEAR OVER THE CITY
(1975, France / Italy, Henri Verneuil)
125 mins15
A sadistic killer calling himself Minos is terrorising Paris, taunting the police and targeting women he considers immoral. Maverick detective Jean Letellier takes the case, but his pursuit soon becomes a breakneck war across rooftops, moving trains and the city’s vertiginous skyline.
Jean-Paul Belmondo performs his own staggering stunts in Henri Verneuil’s muscular policier - a grim serial-killer thriller welded to one of the most exhilarating practical-action films of the 1970s.
Jean-Paul Belmondo performs his own staggering stunts in Henri Verneuil’s muscular policier - a grim serial-killer thriller welded to one of the most exhilarating practical-action films of the 1970s.
Upcoming Screenings
LIVE WIRE
(1992, United States, Christian Duguay)
85 mins15
Washington’s politicians are exploding without warning. Bomb-disposal expert Danny O’Neill has to find the weapon before the next victim discovers they are carrying it inside them. His collapsing marriage is about to become part of the investigation.
Pierce Brosnan brings immaculate pre-Bond composure to a thriller with absolutely no intention of behaving sensibly. Liquid explosives, political conspiracy and domestic melodrama race towards the same detonation. Christian Duguay keeps the set pieces moving and the premise gloriously overheated: early-nineties action with an unusually volatile ingredient.
Pierce Brosnan brings immaculate pre-Bond composure to a thriller with absolutely no intention of behaving sensibly. Liquid explosives, political conspiracy and domestic melodrama race towards the same detonation. Christian Duguay keeps the set pieces moving and the premise gloriously overheated: early-nineties action with an unusually volatile ingredient.
Upcoming Screenings
INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION
(1970, Italy, Elio Petri)
115 mins15
A police chief murders his mistress and leaves evidence pointing directly at himself. He is testing a theory: that an institution built to enforce the law will refuse to recognise the guilt of the man who embodies it.
Gian Maria Volonté is magnificent—swaggering, childish, terrifying—in Elio Petri’s acid political satire. Ennio Morricone’s sly, lurching score helps make authority look both ridiculous and deadly. A murder investigation turned inside out, where the suspense lies in how far power can go before anyone dares to name what is in front of them.
Gian Maria Volonté is magnificent—swaggering, childish, terrifying—in Elio Petri’s acid political satire. Ennio Morricone’s sly, lurching score helps make authority look both ridiculous and deadly. A murder investigation turned inside out, where the suspense lies in how far power can go before anyone dares to name what is in front of them.
Upcoming Screenings
REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONER
(1975, USA, Milton Katselas)
112 mins15
A veteran New York City police officer dies during a botched undercover operation, leaving his inexperienced replacement to uncover what really happened. As the investigation unfolds, she becomes entangled in the city’s bureaucratic pressures, internal corruption, and the psychological toll of policing a system that resists transparency.
The film unfolds as a tense urban crime procedural, but its focus steadily shifts toward the emotional strain of its protagonist and the institutional forces surrounding her. Its New York setting is used less for spectacle and more as a dense, procedural environment where ambiguity and moral compromise dominate.
The film unfolds as a tense urban crime procedural, but its focus steadily shifts toward the emotional strain of its protagonist and the institutional forces surrounding her. Its New York setting is used less for spectacle and more as a dense, procedural environment where ambiguity and moral compromise dominate.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
SHAKEDOWN
(1988, USA, James Glickenhaus)
97 mins18
Public defender Roland Dalton is assigned to represent a drug dealer accused of killing an undercover police officer. Convinced that the shooting was self-defence, Dalton turns to renegade narcotics cop Richie Marks for help and uncovers a network of corrupt officers protecting a lucrative drug operation. Their investigation pulls both men into an escalating war fought across the streets, courtrooms and rooftops of New York.
Peter Weller and Sam Elliott tear through James Glickenhaus’s gloriously excessive action thriller, a film that combines hardboiled conspiracy plotting with some of the most outrageous practical stunt work of the 1980s. From a department-store shootout to a climax involving a passenger jet, SHAKEDOWN continually finds new ways to outdo itself while preserving the grit and momentum of a classic urban crime movie.
Peter Weller and Sam Elliott tear through James Glickenhaus’s gloriously excessive action thriller, a film that combines hardboiled conspiracy plotting with some of the most outrageous practical stunt work of the 1980s. From a department-store shootout to a climax involving a passenger jet, SHAKEDOWN continually finds new ways to outdo itself while preserving the grit and momentum of a classic urban crime movie.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
THE MAD BOMBER (ON 16MM)
(1972, USA, Bert I. Gordon)
91 mins18
William Dorn, a disturbed Los Angeles man whose life has been destroyed by personal tragedy, begins planting and detonating bombs around the city against people and places he blames for society’s problems. When one of his attacks is witnessed by a serial rapist, police detective Geronimo Minelli is forced to track down both the bomber and the dangerous criminal who may hold the key to identifying him.
A grimy piece of early-1970s exploitation cinema, Bert I. Gordon’s crime thriller mixes police procedural, psychological study, and urban nightmare. Chuck Connors gives the film its unsettling centre as a man consumed by rage and paranoia, while the collision between the bomber, the detective, and the rapist creates a bleak portrait of violence and social decay.
A grimy piece of early-1970s exploitation cinema, Bert I. Gordon’s crime thriller mixes police procedural, psychological study, and urban nightmare. Chuck Connors gives the film its unsettling centre as a man consumed by rage and paranoia, while the collision between the bomber, the detective, and the rapist creates a bleak portrait of violence and social decay.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings
NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER
(1980, USA, Robert Butler)
101 mins15
A tough, New York City ex-cop relentlessly searches for his kidnapped teenage daughter, held by a deranged drifter who’s mistaken her for the child of a wealthy businessman. As the chase rages through the city’s derelict streets and subways, both men are pushed to the brink.
Restored at long last, this notorious cult thriller has been nearly impossible to see on any format except VHS for over four decades and is a furious, grimy portrait of Manhattan at its wildest.
Restored at long last, this notorious cult thriller has been nearly impossible to see on any format except VHS for over four decades and is a furious, grimy portrait of Manhattan at its wildest.
Upcoming Screenings
No upcoming screenings