August 14–21, 1997

critical mass|movies

It's a Man's Man's Land

Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone in Cop Land.

It's odd finding typical Easterners like Sylvester Stallone and Ray Liotta — playing good guys gone askew in an imaginary New Jersey suburb — amidst the leafy palm trees of L.A. But that's Copland for you.

Like the town and people it depicts — full of corruption, lies, old west confrontation and vicious power plays — the making of Copland plays out like a political favor.

"Pitching a film's like running for office," says charismatic screenwriter/director James Mangold inside an interview room at the Four Seasons. "You have to convince people of your truth."

But what is truth when cops are held in contempt more than the criminals they catch? Characters like Harvey Keitel's Donlan do wrong in order to "create a community apart from the disease they must chase down every day," says Mangold.

Full of twisted irony, missed opportunities, tense smiles and heat, this sweaty film is matched in moistness only by its testosterone-laden cast; Sly, Ray, dirtball vets Robert De Niro and Keitel (pitted against each other as good cop meets badlieutenant) and new jack creeps Peter Berg, Michael Rapaport and Robert Patrick make up an ensemble only a bailbondsman could love.

"The levels were incredible," says Bowie-lookalike Patrick of all the testosterone. "It made you super competitive."

Rapaport, casual in damp t-shirt and shorts, worried less about competition than he did working with his hero. "Rocky was the first movie that moved me, personally and artistically," says the red-head on being cast second afterStallone in Copland.

"I told 'em I as waiting for De Niro" laughs Patrick. "But I was immediately like, 'Yo Rock.' And [Stallone] received that very well."

Eyeing up the interview situation like a goodfella staring down egg noodles with ketchup, a puffy, gracefully shy Liotta laughs about machismo.

"I'm not a between scenekind of guy," says Liotta. "I don't know where the cameras are set, what lenses are on. I'm not looking to be a director."

He smiles, "I like focus. My character's are always so emotionally charged. I just like to do it and get it over with."

As Copland's most pivotal character — the coked-up, undercover Figgis who vascilates betwen pure evil and righteousness — Liotta can't help but maintain zealous focus. Whether jamming darts into fellaheen noses or accidentally toasting aloved one, his heightened presence is based on his own quiet assurance as well as his reliance on a great script.

"For a while, as an actor I'd rely on research. Now, whether I'm beating someone up or joking around, I just delve into my imagination. I do my homework but it's a matter of approach. I'm not trying to dis any actors, but I refuse to get intothe psychology of the character. You're the good guy, I'm the bad guy. I get it. Just be prepared."

No one is more prepared, competitive and testosterone-drenched than Stallone. As a 50-year-old action icon, the shorter-than-expected Sly, smoothly handsome with supple skin and an elegant dark suit, enters the interview room sweating. Afteraplogizing for the dampness he begins speaking with sotto voce introspection. "I'm never offered anything like this, so I was grateful for the opportunity of being pushed by such actors," says Sly, staring cooly. "I felt like the guestspeaker with these guys."

Though Stallone jokes his way through tales of weight gain as a mask for his ambling, bumbling sheriff ("everytime I'd enter a scene, I'd hear the announcemnt over the PA, 'Fat Man Walking'"), it's apparent that Copland meant lifeand death in more than one way. Stallone the careerist was adrift in a sea of unsuccessful films like Assasins and Daylight. So in finding the core of Freddy, "the deserving loser who suffers in silence, lives a life inretropsect," he had to assimilate into the commonplace, the less-than-mammoth.

"He's like 99% of the the planet," says Stallone. "A good, selfless person who absorbs problems gracefully without bitterness or sarcasm. What holds him together is the need to nourish and protect the woman he saved, the woman heloves. He becomes Quasimodo. That's my psychological back-story."

He describes his first scene on his first day of filming with quiet enthusiasm, detailing a fiery confrontation with De Niro's brutishly sarcastic Internal Affairs cop. "Everyone turned up for the showdown of genres. Producers, investors. ButBobby was very obliging. They allowed me the opportunity to shoot all his close-ups first so that I had time to see how Bobby moved through the scene, his rhythm, his pacing."

But where Patrick and Liotta's necks bulge with savagery, Stallone, playing hearing-deficient Freddy Heflin, isforced to rely on quiet, simple gestures. To that end, choosing a film that forced him to rely on acting instinct rather than fistsmade this "the most important film I've made since F.I.S.T. or Paradise Alley. Rocky — not unlike this film — paralleled who I was at that time. It was after these films that my career went in a differentdirection."

It's the pre-Rambo Stallone that director/writer Mangold — who looks a full-faced cross between a Pee Wee Herman and a young PeterLorre — needed to find. With this, his second film (after the heft-baring Heavy), the decisivemotivator who allows no improvisation or derivation from script, knew exactly what he wanted from Stallone as well as Copland's audeince: the dropping of expectations.

"His iconography is interesting," says Mangold on casting Stallone. "His own journey parallels Freddy's experience. The very thought of casting him gave me goose bumps. But he's so burned into your retinas — like Mickey Mouse — thatan audience has to work harder to see him as somebody else. You have to cancel him out. That's why you bring in De Niro and Keitel."

The thought of a sophomore effort directed by a fresh-faced kid may be delicious, but it inspires it's own strange brand of testosterone — a task the effervescent Mangold seems to relish in the retelling.

"You have to stand your ground. Directing movies is not about placing pencils correctly on the desk or standing around worrying about protocol. I don't keep a wet rag on my head in distress. I say what I want in my scripts (Liotta called him"precious with his own words") and I never censor myself on set. See, I miss the audacity of old films, the fact that they had something to say. You bring in actors who can do just that. Believe me, they like being directed. Especiallysomeone like De Niro."

By bringing in De Niro, Keitel, Liotta and Stallone, Mangold feels as if he's hit upon the most audacious of old school cinematic — and for that matter, political thought.

"De Niro is Jeffersonian law and order. Keitel lives under a brotherhood of us versus them. Liotta is 'fuck everyone, save yourself.'And Stallone is in an incredibly verbal world... caught between a bunch of macho speechmakers. The onething you'll never be able to do is make a silent film about New York City cops."