Armin
Mueller-Stahl stars as a detective investigating the death of a junkie. He tracks down her drug dealer (Frank
Stallone) and winds up falling in love with a classy prostitute (Morgan
Fairchild). The dope pusher is also
entangled in a blackmail scheme with Michael York, who also happens to be a
friend of Mueller-Stahl’s, which complicates matters.
If
you’re a casting director looking for a hardscrabble police detective, Armin
Mueller-Stahl is probably about the eighty-seventh guy you’d pick. If you need someone to fill the role of
someone’s crochety grandfather, he’d be a perfect fit. He’s just all wrong for the part, which
pretty much sinks Midnight Cop from the get-go.
(You also have to deal with a lot of scenes of him pawing and groping
Fairchild, which is sure to churn your stomach.) I did like the fact that they try to give him
a lot of oddball character traits like eating pickles and listening to
instrumental versions of “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.
Mueller-Stahl’s
investigation is very slow-going. Even
when something potentially cool occurs (like when he throws Stallone out of a
window), it’s usually followed with a lot more inanity. In the right hands, this could’ve been an odd
septuagenarian twist on the usual private eye tropes. Unfortunately, director Peter Patzak never
makes it work.
Stallone
fares well enough as the scuzzy pusher who in his big scene gives the girl a
fix while she lays topless on his bed. York
does what he can, but he isn’t very convincing when he makes the switch from
suave businessman to sweaty psycho. I liked
Fairchild as the sexy call girl, although I must admit she could’ve been in it
more. Had she gotten naked for her sex scenes, it might’ve given this weird and slow movie a reason to exist. Other than that, it’s a big waste of time.
AKA: Killing Blue.
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