Top 5 – Dirty Cop Movies

This weekend, John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 comes out.  I am extremely excited for this movie, as it was one of my most anticipated movies of last year before it got pushed back.  The cast is tremendous and I love gritty, corrupt cop movies.  So in honor of that, here are the dirtiest of dirty cop movies.

5 – Premium Rush (David Koepp, 2012)

“Premium Rush” is a criminally (pun?) underrated movie.  I don’t think people thought the idea of watching a New York bike messenger being chased around the city by a corrupt cop was entertaining.  Boy were they wrong.  Premium Rush is awesome.  It’s funny, exciting, and a blast to watch.  Joseph Gordon Levitt is great as our messenger and Michael Shannon steals the entire movie as our gambling addicted corrupt cop.  If you haven’t seen this movie, do it immediately, it is one hell of a movie.

4 – L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hansen, 1997)

This is classic cinema with a modern twist.  Set in 1950’s Los Angeles, in a sea of police corruption, three cops, one straight-laced, one sleazy, and one brutal, investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.  Curtis Hansen created a perfect film noir that can rival the classics from the 40’s.  The all-star cast of Kevin Spacey, Guy Pierce, Russell Crowe, James Cromwell, Danny DeVito, and Oscar winner Kim Basinger is stellar.  The pacing is perfect, the screenplay is brilliantly constructed, and the twists and turns keep coming with every scene.  L.A. Confidential is one of the very best movies of the 90’s.

3 – Serpico  (Sidney Lumet, 1973)

Sidney Lumet is a one of the all-time great directors.   His run in the 1970’s is truly legendary.  This run started off in 1973 with Serpico and it started off with a bang.  Serpico tells the true story of a New York cop who blows the lid off corruption in his precinct, only to have them all turn on him.  This is a David vs Goliath story and it is a hell of a fight.  Al Pacino gives one of the best performances of his career in this movie, as we watch this once clean, good cop fall into a madness as the corruption and pressure gets bigger.  Lumet’s direction is perfect, giving us a real sense of time and scenery.  This is a classic cop film and one of the best for both Pacino and Lumet.

2 – Training Day (Antoine Fuqua, 2001)

Training Day is one of the most significant movies of my life.  I saw this film when I was fourteen years old and it blew me away, so much so, it was my favorite movie of all-time for about two years (which I then discovered Scorsese and Tarantino and others).  Even though it hasn’t sustained it’s position as my favorite movie of all-time, I still love Training Day.  Denzel Washington rightly won an Oscar for his performance as Detective Alonzo Harris, a cop who bends the ethical line as far as it can go while training rookie cop Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke at his very best).  This is a gritty, intense, striking film and still one of my all-time favorites.

1- The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)

Martin Scorsese won his overdue Oscar for this crime thriller about a cop who goes undercover in the mob, while the mob has one of their own inside the police department.  The Departed is classic cat and mouse game between cops and criminals.  It’s a film that blurs the line between good and bad and brings up questions of identity and childhood influences.  This is the best cast Scorsese has ever had, getting top notch performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin.  With a tight, twisty script from William Monaghan, some of Scorsese’s best direction, and a shocking climax, The Departed is one of Scorsese’s best.

What are your favorite dirty cop movies?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @kevflix or on Facebook at Kevflix.