Before I retired, I'd never watch cop movies. I'll watch selected cop movies now. But it seems that most are too fantastical and border on whacked causing them to be unbelievable. One cop vs one bad guy = bad odds for the cop. Yet in many of these recent cop movies, one cop kills a platoon of bad guys before he reloads to vanquish a division. They're just too unbelievable to be credible. But I guess that's what audiences demand: lots of unrealistic gun fights with a few obligatory explosions. And bad guys are always Arab terrorists instead of more believable urban bangers. I have no fear of Arab terrorists. I'm far more likely to run in to a tatted up banger or prison gang felon, which I have, both when I was off-duty and since I've retired, the last being an EME banger. Joe Wambaugh needs to publish new material. He can write believable cop books because he was a cop. For the new generation of cops who are unaware of Wambaugh: http://www.josephwambaugh.net/
So, what's your all time favorite cop movie? For me, the definitive cop movie, the one that has set the standard for cop movies is the original Dirty Harry. I also like LA Confidential and Gangster Squad, both of which are based upon true stories of honest LAPD cops doing battle with corruption within government including LAPD and organized crime; e.g. Mickey Cohen.
This is my favorite scene in my favorite cop movie; a man's man working in an artificial arena created by girly men who were clueless. And Dirty Harry was 100% right: the Warren Court created law -illegal, only congress can create law- and made up suspects' rights right outta thin air. Dirty Harry was in hot pursuit of a dangerous, fleeing suspect. Law gives cops legal authority to shot dangerous, fleeing suspects (Tennessee v. Garner) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/471/1/ There was a reason that Americans wanted Warren impeached, and Eisenhower said of Earl Warren, "He's [Warren] the biggest mistake of my life." James Madison, author of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, did not consider and would not have considered burdening cops in deference to criminals:
BTW, Dirty Harry was based upon the Zodiac Killer. Scorpio was played by Edward G. Robinson's son.
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