Ramesh Nyberg
Hooray for Hollywood – Where You’re Terrific, if You’re Even Good…
I’m not a big Hollywood guy. I like a good show every so often, but most of the stuff I see on TV and on the big screen leaves me unmoved, especially the police stuff.
How often have you gotten this from your friends or new people you meet: “Oh, you’re a cop! Wow, did you see that last ‘48 Hours’? Wasn’t that crazy? What’s your favorite cop show?”
Uh, well…none of them. Okay, I take that back. There have been a few. I really make people step back and scratch their heads when I tell them, “‘Reno 911’ was great – very realistic.” I mean, folks, let’s face it – some of the situations and personalities in those episodes were alarmingly real, were they not?
I’ve always tried to stay away from movies about homicide and cops and all that
because, well, I lived it. And, more than that, 95% of them just get it so
wrong that I end up not finishing the movie. There have been a few exceptions,
so I’ll start with the very first cop crime/cop movie which really grabbed me
and it was way before I had any idea I was going to go into law enforcement: In
the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, released in
1967. First of all, what a brilliant plot! It’s set in 1960’s Mississippi in a poor
little town where black people didn’t go out on the street at night. Here’s
Poitier, late at night, at the town’s train station after visiting his sick
mom, waiting to leave, and unaware that a prominent white businessman was
murdered that night. He’s brought in at gunpoint and says nothing, until he’s
interrogated by the sheriff (Steiger). Then, he reveals that he is a
Philadelphia cop – a homicide detective, in fact. A black cop was unheard of in
that region at that time and the Sheriff is in a quandary: He’s got an unsolved
murder and no competent people to investigate it, except for this Philadelphia
homicide cop who wants no part of it. What happens after that is pure
scriptwriting genius and fabulous acting. If you’re too young to have never seen
this movie and you don’t know who Poitier and Steiger are, well, you need to
see this movie. It’s beyond great.
What made me write about this was a rare moment of recent solitude on my couch,
when I got sole use of the remote and I started cycling through Netflix and
Amazon Prime looking for stuff. Nothing caught my fancy until I saw a trailer
picture of Kevin Costner (an actor I’ve always liked) and Woody Harrelson. They
made a good-looking pair of 1930’s era cops, and I thought it might be worth a
look at how the producers of The Highwaymen treated the story of
the pursuit and eventual killing of Bonnie and Clyde. This is, hands down, one
of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time, maybe since In the Heat of the
Night. If nothing else, it gives you an appreciation for what lawmen had to
work with (damn near nothing) and just how difficult it was to track criminals
who crossed state lines in those days. Harrelson and Costner were superb. Their
speech, barbs and personal demons come into play throughout the film and I
found it hard to quit watching. Yep, I made it until the very end and I was
glad I did.
Who else “got it right”? Well, when it comes to TV dramas, there were a couple.
“Hill Street Blues”was
excellent. “Barney Miller” was
a comedy, but it was good, too, and even pretty realistic, though it was never
the aim of the show. Some scenes from “Law
and Order”were done well, and the detectives going out and doing
witness interviews I thought rang true. But, when they got to the suspect
interviews, well, that’s where the show fell flat. I mean, you have murder
subjects sitting there giving confessions while their attorneys are sitting
next to them. On what planet does that happen? And, in New York, of all
places, where the courts believe that everyone invokes their Miranda rights automatically. That same
lack of realism showed up in another movie I saw recently (yes, someone walked
away from the couch again and left the remote unprotected) called The Loft. A
bunch of wealthy jerks buy a secret condo together so they can take their
mistresses and one-nighters up there. One day, a woman is found dead in the bed
there. Whodunit, indeed? These guys aren’t sure which one of them brought the woman
to this place and it’s a pretty cool movie overall. Even the police interviews were
pretty well-done, until one homicide cop says to one of the men, “Hey, do
yourself a favor. Call your attorney and give us a confession.”
Do what now?
Sigh. If they just would have paid me a couple thousand dollars to consult on
the script, I would have made that – and a lot of other movies – a lot better.
I think the answer is to make our own movies. Or, at least, write our
own books. I’ve been working on mine for a couple of years, but this year I
made a pact with myself to finish it. When it gets close to printing time, I’ll
sound the horn loudly here and everywhere else. It won’t be fiction; it will be
a memoir of sorts. I’m having fun writing it – it’s been an exploration of not
just my career, but my childhood, too. I didn’t set out to do that, but the
process kind of dug that up and it was surprising. You’ll see what I mean when
you read it (see that subliminal stuff going on there? When you read it…when
you read it…when…) AHEM! Okay, back to movies.
I’m now on the hunt for more really good, well-done, realistic crime dramas. The Highwaymen will be tough to
beat, but go ahead and send me some you liked. I’m listening (and hiding the
remote).
Ramesh Nyberg retired from law enforcement in November 2006 after 27 years in police work. He now owns his own private investigation agency, Nyberg Security and Investigations, and can be reached at Ramesh@NybergPi.com. He enjoys getting feedback from readers.