Crime Thrillers, Detective Stories, Modern Noir, Police Action
Classic and cult-worthy cinema, of the 1980s and 1990s, dominates this list... because that’s when I became more seriously interested in popular movies, while re-watching, and studying, genre films, with fan-boy ambitions to write criticism. Inevitably, I pick mostly American police thrillers offering the greatest fun possibilities, and repeatable entertainment values, with a variety of legal subjects (including murder, or gangsters - so this list isn’t just about robbery by villains), while I avoid blatantly superhero and comicbook adventures, like RoboCop (1987), Dick Tracy (1990), Sin City (2005), and Dredd (2012).
I also excluded any examples of classic film noir, simply because so few of them are not, for me, inherently re-watchable, especially during this century. Such old B&W pictures were early products of a cinema technology that was, until well into the 1960s, still in progressive development, or colour stock was not easily, or cheaply, available in all regions. One other strand that’s relevant is supernatural crime movies like: Wolfen (1981), directed by Michael Wadleigh, Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) by Larry Cohen, and Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987), with a cross-genre approach, for character-study, personified by Lance Henriksen as Frank Black in Chris Carter’s TV series, Millennium (1996-99). Much as I love them all, I crossed these off my list, too. Films are listed here in chronological order, with an A-Z at the end. Could, or would, you (re-)watch one of these, each day, for a month?
Dirty Harry (1971)
Director: Don Siegel
Clint Eastwood firmly established his now-iconic Inspector Harry Callahan, as brutal police thug, whose impolite manner seemed a necessary evil, while hunting down the psycho serial-killer ‘Scorpio’ (Andrew Robinson), in San Francisco. ‘Dirty’ Harry soon returned for Magnum Force (1973), about cops becoming killers; and - my favourite - The Enforcer (1976), where brusque Harry is partnered (unhappily, at first) with Kate Moore (Tyne Daly, a TV star in Cagney & Lacey, 1982-8); followed by Sudden Impact (1983), with Eastwood directing himself. And, finally, The Dead Pool (1988). If you’re feeling lucky... binge-watch all five movies, or punk out!
The French Connection (1971)
Director: William Friedkin
Shortly after Peter Yates’ actioner Bullitt (1968), starring Steve McQueen, on location in San Francisco, exciting car-chase movies had arrived with an unforgettable impact. Not to be outpaced by their east-coast rivals, here, New York becomes a cat ‘n’ mouse battlefield, with the dynamic excellence of mayhem on wheels. Based on a non-fiction book, about drug smugglers, this seminal police procedural stars Gene Hackman in a career-defining, Oscar-winning, role - successful enough to produce a sequel, French Connection II (1975), directed by John Frankenheimer, plus TV-movie, Popeye Doyle (1986). Hackman died a year ago, leaving us with four decades of great performances.
Brannigan (1975)
Director: Douglas Hickox
I’m really not a fan of John Wayne, but always liked his grouchy performance in this, made just before Clint Eastwood’s third Dirty Harry outing, The Enforcer, that also teamed its rogue hero with a police-woman. John plays Chicago cop Jim, in London, where he meets Judy Geeson as heroine Thatcher. Richard Attenborough is good fun as their boss, Sir Swann. The exceptional supporting cast includes: Mel Ferrer, John Vernon, Lesley Anne Down, James Booth, Brian Glover, and Don Henderson. Look out for Tony Robinson, too. First appearing alongside British TV series The Sweeney (1975-8), this film helped popularise the recognisably home-grown action genre, and seems to have prompted features, like David Wickes’ Sweeney! (1977), and its sequel, Tom Clegg’s Sweeney 2 (1978). Probably, Brannigan also inspired Ranald Graham’s popular show Dempsey And Makepeace (1985-6).
The Driver
(1978)
Writer & Director: Walter Hill
No character names, here. It’s a highly stylised thriller, of pure genre symbolism, with minimalist dialogue, clearly inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville’s classic French noir, Le Samurai (1967). Ryan O’Neal plays getaway driver ‘Cowboy’, Bruce Dern is the crafty police ‘Detective’ out to catch him, and Isabelle Adjani is the ‘Player’. Predictably, car chases start and end this movie, but one of cinema’s greatest crash scenes takes place in an empty underground car park, where stuntmen demo precision skills around the garage, to smash-up a Mercedes, without physical injury to passengers. Drive (2011), starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, was an obvious tribute-film to The Driver.
Murder By Decree (1979)
Director: Bob Clark
The ultimate Sherlock whodunit, because the villain here is ‘Jack the Ripper’, and the casting of Christopher Plumber, as a quite likeable Holmes, with James Mason as Dr John Watson, was clearly genius-level thinking. From daylight Baker Street to gothic alley design, this Victorian conspiracy chiller wisely steers away from typical slashers wallowing in gory shocks, such as mystery-horror, From Hell (2001), and is a greater movie because of its mature discretion.
Sharky’s Machine (1981)
Director: Burt Reynolds
While directing himself, 1970s’ superstar Reynolds somehow, inadvertently, made his best-ever movie. Although the plot’s main twist owes a great debt to Otto Preminger’s classic mystery, Laura (1944), this drama of murder and political corruption updates its police-surveillance scenario, and sex fantasy about classy escort, Dominoe (Rachel Ward), with psychotic violence, from cocaine-fuelled killer, ‘Billy Score’ (Henry Silva, off the rails), perhaps an inspiration for Stansfield (Gary Oldman), in Leon (1994), by Luc Besson. Buddy-movie, Stakeout (1987), directed by John Badham, was a farcical rom-com variant of this atypical crime-thriller.
48 Hrs. (1982)
Director: Walter Hill
First, and best, of the 1980s’ buddy-movie actioners, this has a convict, Reggie (Eddie Murphy) team-up with San Francisco cop, Jack (Nick Nolte), for hunting killer, Ganz (James Remar, never better), after a stash of stolen money. This loot ‘MacGuffin’ has driven plots before, of course, but the focus here explores mismatched chalk & cheese characters who become wary friends in violent adversity, when satirically outrageous Murphy provokes racists, with a black cultural philosophy like sarcasm’s razor. Made with four times its budget, sequel Another 48 Hrs. (1990), faces down a revenge plot, plus extra dollops of comedy.
I, The Jury (1982)
Director: Richard T. Heffron
Based upon Mickey Spillane’s 1947 debut novel (previously filmed by Harry Essex as 1950s’ styled 3D noir), this updated ‘gumshoe’ flick, scripted by Larry Cohen, packs a wallop, starring Armand Assante as tough private-eye Mike Hammer (also played by nicer Stacy Keach on TV). I always prefer this witty hokum, to over-stylised films like Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973), or Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974). Laurene Landon plays Mike’s secretary Velda, while Barbara Carrera, as Dr Bennett, adds more sophisticated glamour to moody urban sleaze, that often suits Hammer’s brashly swaggering bad manners.
To Live And Die In L.A. (1984)
Co-writer & Director: William Friedkin
The definitive 1980s’ movie, this vengeful clash between Secret Service (US Treasury) agent, Chance (William Petersen), and money counterfeiter, Masters (Willem Dafoe), delivers slickly authentic crime scenes, visuals by European cinematographer Robby Muller, and music by British band Wang Chung. It’s quite dazzlingly presented, with fashionable style that was adopted, then clichéd, by Michael Mann’s faddish TV show Miami Vice (1984-90), but its vibrant energy and cultural impact remains exemplary for this decade’s Hollywood cinema.
Year Of The Dragon (1985)
Director: Michael Cimino
Co-written by Cimino, with Oliver Stone, this is based on ex-cop Robert Daley’s novel. Deservedly winning cult-worthy status, it’s a thriller starring Mickey Rourke as a New York police captain, and John Lone as the new leader of Triad gangs. After a string of violent betrayals, their uneasy truce is broken, and Stanley White goes rogue to arrest Joey Tai. Full of blistering action that contrasts with a few melodramatic scenes, Year Of The Dragon excels at messy, scary, bullet-strewn, urban battles that, in retrospect, and partly because of the movie’s Chinese back-story and cultural presence, appear to anticipate if not influence, the now-familiar hectic style of director John Woo, at least from A Better Tomorrow (1986), onwards.
Extreme Prejudice (1987)
Director: Walter Hill
“Look the other way, or die trying.” One of the boldest modern westerns, this actioner is an effective Peckinpah tribute, with comic-book styling. It stars Nick Nolte as Texas Ranger Jack Benteen, and Powers Boothe plays drug-smuggler, Cash Bailey. There’s a secret army team on a rogue mission, as Benteen confronts acutely corrupt forces that prompt a climactic duel, and showdown in Mexico. Contrary to cowboy lore, Jack and Cash both wear white hats, like a symbol of their old friendship. The great supporting cast includes: Maria Conchita Alonso, Rip Torn, Michael Ironside, and Clancy Brown.
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Director: Richard Donner
Written by Shane Black, mixing policier noir, partly about
suicidal grief, with actioner style fuelled by ex-military corruption. Mel
Gibson and Danny Glover play new LAPD partners Riggs and Murtaugh,
investigating murky underworld links to CIA agents of the Vietnam War. With nasty
blackmail, kidnapping, and torture, as escalating stages of the chief villain’s
plans, only the special forces training of Riggs might save the day. Gary Busey plays a strong but silent henchman, Joshua.
Although this was exciting as top action franchise starter, packed with
glossily explosive thrills, three movie sequels (1989, 1992, 1998), also by Donner,
mocked Riggs’ crazy mentality, and domesticated the fighting spirit of Murtaugh.
Quite bemusingly, it lurched into farcical self-parody. However, an engagingly
witty remake, for TV (2016-9), ran for three seasons.
The Untouchables (1987)
Director: Brian De Palma
Written by David Mamet, this bio-pic frames Prohibition as the fundamentally moral crusade between Federal Agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner), and Chicago’s mobster Al Capone (Robert De Niro). The Untouchables is De Palma’s genuine masterpiece, and my favourite ‘cops & robbers’ movie. A train-station climax pays clever homage to the famous ‘Odessa Steps’ montage, from Soviet Russia’s silent film, Battleship Potemkin (1925). Earlier set-pieces explore the credibility of heroism, and inhuman depths that crooks find appealing. This classic is on my top 25 list of best bio-pics.
Die Hard
(1988)
Director: John McTiernan
Bruce Willis, as John McClane, proves that one man can make a difference, when he’s a plain-clothes superhero. British actor Alan Rickman (1946 - 2016), plays a German villain, Hans Gruber, helping to establish a casting formula like the new transatlantic stereotype for Hollywood. Die Hard is not a bloody ‘Xmas movie’, it’s actually a high-rise western. The corporate skyscraper plaza is clearly a ‘vertical’ town, and mentions of John Wayne and Roy Rogers cannot fail to verify the cowboy-versus-outlaws label. Sequels established a variable franchise but I think they’re all good or great actioners.
- Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990) - hero during airport siege, directed by Renny Harlin.
- Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995) - McTiernan returns for McClane’s buddy-movie.
- Live Free Or Die Hard (2007) - cyber-attacks on United States. Len Wiseman directs.
- Die Hard 4.0 (aka: A Good Day to Die Hard, 2013) - McClane & son’s Moscow spy-fi.
Black Rain
(1989)
Director: Ridley Scott
American detectives visit Japan, as police escort yakuza killer Sato, who they arrested for knife-murders in New York. Michael Douglas stars as bad cop Nick Conklin, Andy Garcia plays his likeable partner, Charlie Vincent. After flying overseas, they can only be US observers in Osaka. Down at prefecture station, Japanese cops and biker-gangs with cyberpunk vibe, don’t care about Yankee bullshit, or swaggering foreigners. Kate Capshaw (now Mrs Spielberg) plays night-club hostess Joyce, careful never to appear like a femme fatale. International politics and extralegal co-operation is central when Americans face twin problems of culture-shock and xenophobia. Ken Takakura plays Osaka cop Inspector ‘Mas’ and he’s an unlikely third man in this buddy-movie. Gaijin tricked into a fatal trap. Mobster-mash power-plays result in rebel Conklin’s arrest, but he avoids official deportation, then chases ambitious Sato, to find a counterfeiting plate. From foundry to farm, director Scott makes memorable use of back-drops, for action sequences on vastly different locations, that contrast stunning painterly colours with a familiar neon glamour of Japanese city streets.
Blue Steel
(1990)
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Jamie Lee Curtis plays a cop (on her first day at work) who shoots a robber... oh yeah, it sounds like a terrible Hollywood cliché. But with astute direction, and a great effort by Curtis as Megan Turner, this visually stunning thriller about a psycho (Ron Silver) with a stolen gun, ensured the star’s break away from slasher and horror stereotypes. Comparisons to John Carpenter’s Halloween are hardly relevant, because Megan kills first, before the witness who turns into an obsessive maniac, and it’s her defiant stand against armed robbery that prompts his later criminal behaviour. For a policewoman, Blue Steel seems a nightmare, but it’s one of the era’s greatest cops & robbers movies.
The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Jodie Foster stars as FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, in this acutely macabre crime film, about hunting a serial killer. With its descent into anguish, for a terrifying, yet darkly humorous confrontation, the movie’s finale is done rather better than quite similarly themed violence, in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of revenge-thriller, Cape Fear. If the main problem with Demme’s classic horror is that gothic undertones, of Anthony Hopkins playing Dr Lecter, attempts to counteract a realistic portrayal, by Brian Cox as Lecktor, in Michael Mann’s chiller Manhunter (1986), well, that’s messy franchise revisionism for you. Awkwardly, Red Dragon (2002), directed by Brett Ratner, tried to be a remake of Manhunter, and a prequel to Ridley Scott’s great sequel, Hannibal (2001), which cast Julianne Moore as federal agent Starling. The belated TV spin-off, Clarice (2021), starred Rebecca Breeds in the lead role, for a character-study series.
Hard Boiled
(1992)
Director: John Woo
I never liked the term ‘heroic bloodshed’ but, for John Woo, this instant-classic movie became his best Hong Kong work, under the humbler ‘gun fu’ label, of choreographed stunts. Premier action stylist Woo directs Asian superstar, Chow Yun-fat, as Inspector ‘Tequila’, and Tony Leung, as undercover cop Alan. The great Anthony Wong as Triad leader Johnny, his top henchman, gunfighter Mad Dog (Philip Kwok), and Teresa Mo as Tequila’s girlfriend (also a police officer), and ex-cop actor Philip Chan as Tequila’s boss, Superintendent Pang, round out an excellent supporting cast. The magnificently artful blending of real-time and slow-motion, creates visual poetry, mythic resonance, and low-key symbolism, to survey the ‘warrior mystique’ of vehemence versus valour. Far more than just ‘Die Hard in a hospital’, the movie’s climax delivers such a blazing shoot-out of genuinely impressive thrills, punctuated by tragedy, humour, and rather extraordinarily unsafe business like fire endangering a nursery in the maternity ward. Tequila’s honest one-liner: “You saved the day, you little piss-pot!”, always makes me laugh.
Falling Down
(1993)
Director: Joel Schumacher
“I’m going home... Clear a path!” Starting with brooding riffs, on Scorsese’s charmless Taxi Driver (1976), and Godard’s surrealistic Weekend (1967), Michael Douglas plays frustrated driver, William ‘Bill’ Foster, in a gridlocked car with personalised ‘D-FENS’ number plate. Perhaps the greatest supporting actor of his generation, Robert Duvall (who died last month) co-starred as Los Angeles police detective, Prendergast, on his last day at work. The cop tracks pedestrian Foster’s bouts of violence for challengingly satirical mayhem, through post-yuppie scenes, where laughably angry residents meet the last gasps of patriarchal machismo, and consequences of a suppressed rage. What begins like a sketch about an imaginary blues song, ratchets tighter with the drive-by shooting in street-gang territory, that does nothing but add guns to D-FENS’ temper. This is Schumacher’s genuine cult-worthy masterpiece of sardonic irony, particularly when it pre-empts the various criminal themes and episodic structure, of Tarantino’s popular Pulp Fiction (1994).
Heat (1995)
Writer & Director: Michael Mann
Basically, a cinematic remake of Mann’s cult TV-movie L.A. Takedown (aka: Made In L.A., 1989), this scaled-up feature reflects on the dichotomy of villain and hero in epic movies, like The Untouchables, but flips their usual, if not always so typical, character traits. Here, Al Pacino plays LAPD Lieutenant Vincent Hanna, as loud and obnoxious, while co-star Robert De Niro (ghastly and vicious, as Capone, in The Untouchables) is the quietly intense criminal bloke, as Neil McCauley. Rightly celebrated for its camera work, and some electrifying shoot-out choreography after the bank robbery sequence, Heat is not just another actioner, it’s Hollywood’s greatest crime thriller of the 1990s.
Seven (aka: Se7en, 1995)
Director: David Fincher
After the success of The
Silence Of The Lambs, it was this extraordinarily ‘dark’ movie that added
unflinching horrors to standard policier films. Morbid extremes anticipate the
21st century’s cycle of ‘torture porn’ shockers, epitomised by Leigh Whannell,
and James Wan, creating the Saw
franchise (2004-23). Veteran police detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) teams
up with younger cop Mills (Brad Pitt) for a serial-killer case of murders based
on the ‘seven deadly sins’. Killings that are inspired by gluttony and greed
are dreadful enough, but a sloth victim is found still alive after a year of
torture. A sunless urban atmosphere means even daylight scenes are so grimly
oppressive, it’s as if the unknown city’s a nightmarish purgatory, or a world unfit
for basic humanity. Seven might resemble
Blade Runner (1982), but often feels
like TV show The X-Files (1993-2002),
with a Hammer-horror super-villain. Literary puzzles, solved by canny old
Somerset, also reveal Mills’ ignorance. Disgust, as required for modern horror,
is in plentiful supply here. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Mills’ unhappy, doomed, wife
Tracy. The killer, ‘John Doe’ (Kevin Spacey), might be the devil or a dark
angel, delivering a message from god. In genre terms, it’s curious that Seven owes far more to mystery-horror, Angel Heart (1987), than fantasy-comedy,
Bedazzled (1967).
Fargo (1996)
Co-Writers & Directors: Joel & Ethan Coen
Ever since Blood Simple (1984), the Coen brothers have re-mixed subgenre themes of modern noir, black comedy, and stylised horror. I think Miller’s Crossing (1990), was the greatest film about gangsters, while their western, True Grit (2010), was a remake that improves upon 1969’s original vehicle for John Wayne. Fargo perfects the Coens’ innovative mode of twisty mystery-thriller, with occasionally surrealistic imagery. Set in northern US states, this movie stars Frances McDormand as police chief, pregnant Marge Gunderson, and William H. Macy as crooked salesman, Jerry. Everything that could go wrong with Jerry’s kidnap-for-random plot eventually does, and so murders seem inevitable. Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare are great fun as chalk-and-cheese chancers leading the supporting cast with a leisurely plot that crackles with ironic wit. “Yeah, you betcha!” Noah Hawley developed a TV spin-off (2014-24), that ran for five seasons.
Face/Off
(1997)
Director: John Woo
This non-stop sci-fi actioner pits Nicolas Cage against John Travolta, with iconic role-play. It continues the switch of traditional cop and crook stereotypes, previously seen in Heat, following The Untouchables. Travolta, as heroic FBI agent, Sean Archer, and Cage, as prime villain Castor Troy, deliver scenes of mind-bendingly tremendous fun, about rival personalities with conflicting identities, when hi-tech surgery trades their faces, and they have to portray each other. Both actors tackle performing, with relish, and super-cool confidence, despite initial confused anxieties. Sad dad Archer became frustrated by FBI rules after his son was killed. Castor spooks choir like a crazy comic villain. Saint against sinner characters mark-up religious symbolism of good and evil. Hysterically homicidal maniac versus a family man, married to Dr Eve. Castor learns he has a son named Adam. Eventually, the cop and the crook discover they are more alike than either of them ever thought. The central undercover mission, in ‘Erehwon’ (nowhere) prison, meets Castor’s brother Pollux, who knows the location of a WMD. A key scene has Archer and Troy, pause, in opposition, before a double-sided mirror, guns aimed at their reflections, and so each other, adding critical nightmare imagery.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Director: Curtis Hanson
Adapted by Hanson, with co-scripter Brian Helgeland, from a novel by James Ellory, this episodic noir has sleazy police collide with showbiz cynicism beneath a veneer of Hollywood glamour. Three cops navigate 1950s’ vice, while cosmetic surgery makes celebrity look-alikes for escort prostitutes. Fabulous in retrospect, main cast features Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Strathairn, Danny DeVito, and Kim Basinger. It’s a period-setting but without nostalgia. Elegant styles of history, blend with a messily realistic modernity, to cleverly avoid the men-in-hats appeal of Mulholland Falls (1996), that looks dated when this movie offers a timeless quality. Cops close ranks against public scandal, but happily betray their career rivals for promotion. American dreams are poisoned by ‘righteous trash’. Corruption might discover conscience, even heartless thugs. Here we find angels perching on shoulder-chips, or devils in secret wallets. “Just the facts,” quotes the in-story TV show, ‘Badge Of Honour’ that references Dragnet (1951-9). And yet, apart from a Lana Turner joke, L.A. Confidential never spoofs its milieu like remake movie Dragnet (1987). Although the plot’s about cops, crimes, and knotty tangles of both, the movie’s producers wisely put Kim Basinger on the posters.
The X-Files (aka:
The X-Files: Fight The Future, 1998)
Director: Rob Bowman
Before the Millennium, the formulaic blend of basic ‘cops & robbers’ action expanded. Chris Carter’s hit TV series about FBI agents, Fox ‘Spooky’ Mulder (David Duchovny), and Dr Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), became a perfect SF/fantasy/horror/mystery TV series of the 1990s. This first spin-off movie continues that cross-genre mix, about weird crimes, and government conspiracy. Thrills and intrigues abound in this smart sci-fi scenario inspired by ‘first contact’ themes. The prehistoric beginning references Stanley Kubrick’s artistic masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and its climax absorbs themes from John Carpenter’s superb monsterama, The Thing (1982), which remains the best remake in cinema history, and the greatest SF-horror movie. Wisely, this cribs from such classics, and combines contrasting elements, with re-interpretive twists, and it’s something that just a few modern franchised productions do very well.
The Kingdom
(2007)
Director: Peter Berg
Potentially a classic, The Siege (1998), directed by Edward Zwick, was, too frequently, over-weighted by its star turns. Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, and Bruce Willis (in a rare villain role). It followed nearly forgotten TV movie, Path To Paradise (1997) about 1993’s World Trade Centre bombing. After the destruction of WTC twin towers, on 11th September 2001, American agents hunting terrorists committing random acts of extreme brutality no longer seemed viable as movie thrillers. However, middle-east timelines about Saudi Arabian oil, sold to the USA, spawned vast imbalances of global power. A set-up between traditional beliefs, based on religious delusions, and modern secular society built upon US trust in god-of-money Mammon, was a total fiction that defied reality while attempting to define humanity. Obviously, the cultures are deeply flawed. Complexity and sophistication being simplified is a typical requirement for all action movies, even cops & robbers dramas where crimes are solved by intelligence or forensic clues. The Kingdom sits on a throne of American self-indulgence, thankfully, never overwhelmed by its cast. Jamie Foxx, and Chris Cooper... plus Jennifer Garner, from superhero movies, Daredevil (2003), and under-valued Elektra (2005), and TV spy-fi series, Alias (2001-6), who steals every scene she’s in.
Mad Detective
(2007)
Directors: Johnnie To & Wai Ka-Fai
While obsessive-compulsive disorder and a long list of phobias enabled Adrian (Tony Shalhoub), to help San Francisco cops, in TV comedy-drama Monk (2002-9), Chinese movie Mad Detective reaches a new level of eccentric weirdness. Virtuoso techniques of film-making merge with superb characterisation of an unhinged ex-cop, Bun (Sean Lau), sacked for cutting off his own ear. Later, off his meds, maybe off his trolley, but he hears appeal from Inspector Ho (Andy On), for help to find a missing officer. Bun claims that seeing people’s inner life means his intuition is peerless, while remaining ambiguous. A murderer’s split ‘personalities’ appearing on-screen, skilfully generates unease, and suspense, even more surprisingly powerful than William Hurt’s alter-ego for Kevin Costner’s sociopath in Hollywood’s psycho-chiller, Mr Brooks (also 2007). Mad Detective offers poignant farce with mesmerising demos of crime-buster insight, like neuro-diverse genius, but delivery is on the knife-edge of supernatural absurdity.
Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame (2010)
Director: Tsui Hark
Set in the Tang dynasty, where Andy Lau plays exiled traitor,
Di Renjie, pardoned to investigate mysterious murders, before the coronation of
Empress Wu (Carina Lau). Our hero contends with palace intrigues, and a military
coup against the first woman on
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Director: David Fincher
One of Hollywood’s very best remakes, this revision is of the first Swedish movie from Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium’ trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. With sequels, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest, all filmed in 2009, they showcased Noomi Rapace, as a Pippi Longstocking meets Modesty Blaise. US actress Rooney Mara replaced Swedish star Rapace, but with a finer performance. A computer hacker with a photographic memory, Lisbeth Salander is quite basically a disturbed, dangerous, cyberpunk heroine, helping famous reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig, between Bond movies), solve the cold-case of an heiress who vanished, 40 years ago. Violence and vengeance haunt mystery research, and detective work, as the unlikely crime-busters uncover secrets about a wealthy family with links to Nazis. A follow-up movie, Fede Alvarez’s The Girl In The Spider’s Web (2018) is also a great conspiracy thriller, although its star (Claire Foy plays Lisbeth) is closer to a costumed vigilante than any private-detective or investigative-journalist character.
Charlie’s Angels (2019)
Writer & Director: Elizabeth Banks
While the 1970s’ TV series attempted to break new ground for pop-culture feminism, a pair of millennial spy-fi movies from ‘McG’ only succeeded as guilty pleasures. The franchise redevelopment, by Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, later continued with a short-lived TV remake (2011). Eventually, Hollywood twigged to the obvious, that any new movie about the now-international Townsend detective agency really needed a woman in charge. This ‘requel’ feature perfects the formula’s appeal.
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TOP 30 ‘COPS & ROBBERS’ A-Z LIST
Black Rain (1989)
Blue Steel (1990)
Brannigan (1975)
Charlie’s Angels (2019)
Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame (2010)
Die Hard (1988)
Dirty Harry (1971)
The Driver (1978)
Extreme Prejudice (1987)
Face/Off (1997)
Falling Down (1993)
Fargo (1996)
48 Hrs. (1982)
The French Connection (1971)
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Hard Boiled (1992)
Heat (1995)
I, The Jury (1982)
The Kingdom (2007)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Mad Detective (2007)
Murder By Decree (1979)
Se7en (aka: Seven, 1995)
Sharky’s Machine (1981)
The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
To Live And Die In L.A. (1984)
The Untouchables (1987)
The X-Files (aka: The X-Files: Fight The Future, 1998)
Year Of The Dragon (1985)
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