San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The good and the bad apples of police portrayals in Hollywood.
Playing an American cop onscreen has been a rite of passage for many actors, but let’s be honest: Most police portrayals are not only fawning recruitment tools; they’re also just really bad and stupid. (See: Chuck Norris as a slowkicking Texas Ranger, Kiefer Sutherland as grimacing torture agent Jack Bauer on “24” or any of the cardboard cutout cops on CBS’ primetime schedule.)
Luckily, there have been some good apples in this rotten bunch. Here, we take a look at our favorite fake TV officers from the past 30 years and the bigscreen baddies we can’t forget.
Good TV cops
Ben Mendelsohn as Detective Ralph Anderson in “The Outsider” (2020): Australian character actor Mendelsohn does more with a glance than most actors do with entire pages of dialogue. As a Georgia detective grieving the loss of his child while investigating the grisly murder of another in the genreblending HBO series, Mendelsohn uses his sad eyes to haunting effect. See the actor’s wonderful scenes with Cynthia Erivo as private investigator Holly Gibney, in which Mendelsohn’s character bristles at Gibney’s supernatural theories while also pleading, with those baleful eyes, to give him a reason to believe that his son’s soul lives on.
Still, Ralph Anderson is the kind of cop real departments should want: He accepts outside help and doesn’t ignore contradictory evidence, even when it exposes him to civil litigation. The average officer has rarely looked so forlorn — or responsible.
Regina King as Angela Abar / Sister Knight in “Watchmen” (2019): The HBO series takes place in an alternate present where Robert Redford is president, squiddy things fall out of the sky and the Tulsa police department requires its officers to wear masks and seek permission before unholstering their firearms. As the hooded Detective Sister Knight, King takes on a white domestic terrorism cell and uncovers a disturbing connection to the 1921 massacre of a thriving Black community in Tulsa.
The show, inspired by the 1986 comic book miniseries of the same name, is audaciously smart, and King is reliably terrific as an asskicking policewoman who learns that putting on a mask to fight crime only makes sense for those who have been denied traditional justice.
Patrick Wilson as Minnesota state trooper Lou Solverson in “Fargo,” season two (2015): As the quintessentially decent cop in a small town under siege by rival crime factions in 1979, Wilson takes what could be a thankless role and makes it sing with subtle grace notes of worried resolve and sensible courage. His is a stiff upper lip that belies the losses he knows are coming.
The second season of this FX anthology series, loosely inspired by the Coen brothers’ film of the same name, is its best. And Wilson, surrounded by a splendid cast giving standout performances (give Bokeem Woodbine his own spinoff!), makes being a good husband, father and civil servant seem cool.
Lance Reddick as Lt. Cedric Daniels in “The Wire” (200208): During my first few viewings of this seminal HBO series, I was Team McNulty all the way. But much as my views on Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye” soured as I grew older, I’ve found myself rooting for Reddick’s stalwart, ladderclimbing authority figure instead of Dominic West’s brash, selfdestructive Jimmy McNulty. Now, I think of Daniels as the only adult in a squad room filled with shortsighted rebels, thuggish lunkheads and downright snakes.
He appears to play by the rules of his institutionally corrupt police bureaucracy while laying the groundwork for something better. The tragedy of “The Wire” is that his attempts at changing the system from within don’t work any better than McNulty’s attempts to bring it crashing down.
Andre Braugher as Detective Frank Pembleton in “Homicide: Life on the Street” (19931998, 2000): Braugher’s six seasons as the NBC drama’s chainsmoking master interrogator represent the greatest acting achievement in television history. Full stop. Fight me. (Also see story on Page 9.)
You may recognize Braugher as the deadpan Capt. Raymond Holt from “Brooklyn NineNine,” but his Pembleton remains a smashing, singular creation. Impatient with his coworkers and relentless with suspects in “the box,” the Jesuiteducated Pembleton and the Juilliardtrained actor who
portrayed him are responsible for some of the most powerful scenes ever put on the small screen. And his recurring squabbles with partner Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor is the Scottie Pippen to Braugher’s M.J.) are wiser than anything you’ve seen on “True Detective.”
Bad movie cops
Mark Wahlberg as Sgt. Sean Dignam in “The Departed” (2006): The caustic Bahhstan sahhjent is the most quotable character in Martin Scorsese’s eminently watchable crime thriller, and Wahlberg plays him like a brutal insult comic. But he’s also kind of a crappy supervisor. Dignam genuinely doesn’t seem to care about the safety of his undercover officer (Leonardo DiCaprio), who infiltrates the Boston mob and unravels under the pressure. “I’m the guy who does his job. You must be
the other guy,” Dignam snaps at a fumbling IT worker at one point. It’s a great line, but is it true?
Matt Dillon as Sgt. John Ryan in “Crash” (2004): This facile excuse for Hollywood wokeness tries to convince us that Dillon’s racist, sexually predatory cop can be redeemed by one heroic act in the end. Not buying it, so don’t bother selling.
Denzel Washington as Detective Alonzo Harris in “Training Day” (2001): The King Kong of bad screen cops, Washington is a charismatic dynamo as Alonzo Harris, who’s actively trying to corrupt his new trainee (Ethan Hawke) while calling in markers for a big gambling debt. It’s a fun, overthetop performance; I just wish real cops wouldn’t emulate it.
Keanu Reeves as FBI agent Johnny Utah in “Point Break” (1991): I like this Kathryn Bigelowhelmed action flick, and I like Reeves in it. But consid
er that his Johnny Utah blows a DEA undercover operation, gets his partner killed and lets the bad guy get away on purpose twice! Then tell me he’s good at his job.
Mel Gibson as Detective Martin Riggs in the “Lethal Weapon” series (198798): The only thing that’s aged worse than Riggs’ mullet is Riggs’ unhinged temperament as a rulebreaking Los Angeles cop. I mean, how many times can you almost get your partner killed before someone asks for your badge — and orders you to get a haircut?
Fox brought this macho relic back for a 21st century TV audience, with the first two seasons starring Clayne Crawford as the reckless Riggs, which is a pretty good metaphor for how hard it’s been to change the culture of policing, even in Hollywood.
Raheem Hosseini is a freelance writer.