Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Maniac Cop (1988)

Director: William Lustig

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Had writer/producer Larry Cohen directed this low-budget thriller himself, it might have displayed more vitality and wit. As it is, despite abundant action and a start involving a fistful of murders, the overall effect is sluggish. There's a psycho killer in police colours terrorising New York. Detective McCrae (Atkins) reckons he's a member of the force, but his boss disagrees, until the wife of young officer Jack Forrest (Campbell) is found dead, leaving a diary and cuttings that implicate her faithless spouse. While Forrest and his policewoman girlfriend (Landon) struggle to establish his innonence, subplots snowball, peripheral characters proliferate, and the killings culminate in a none too imaginatively staged car chase. Only the odd line of dialogue and occasional bizarre detail hint at Cohen's quirky signature; performances and camerawork are solid enough, but both cutting and direction are formulary and flabby.

Author: EA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: William Lustig

Producer: Larry Cohen

Cast: Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Richard Roundtree, William Smith, Robert Z'Dar, Sheree North, Erik Holland, Jake La Motta, Sam Raimi full cast

Genre(s): Horror

Duration: 85 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.