***SPOILERS*** "Copkiller" or "Corrupt" does it's best to mix police corruption with a string of killing of "dirty cops", who work for the plain clothes narcotic division of the NYPD, and comes out a bit uneven in the end.
Narcotic plain clothes policemen are being murdered in New York City by this serial killer who dresses as a NYC policemen wearing a ski mask. The masked psycho kills the cops by slashing their throats with a long serrated knife. On the scene of one of the killers victims he left a phony police badge. While all this is going on we see NYC police Let. Fred O'Connor, Harvey Keitle, who's on "the take" with his partner police officer Bob Carvo, Leonard Mann, and who, together with Carvo, is living a double life. The two cops masquerade around as high living drug dealers at a $400,000.00 apartment overlooking Central Park. Everythings going well for the two plain clothes policeman until one afternoon when this weirdo Leo Smith, John Lydon, shows up at their apartment unannounced.
O'Connor at first doesn't know what to make of this oddball since he feels that he somehow has "the goods" on him in his illegal drug dealings, together with his partner. How else could Leo have known about his and Carvo's secret apartment and the double lives that they lead?
Later on Let. O'Connor finds out that Leo comes from a very rich family who live in the town of Rhiencliff in upstate New York and is being looked for, as a missing person, by the entire police departments in both NYC & Rheincliff. Having him locked up in his apartment O'Connor goes up to Rhiencliff to see Leo's grandmother Margaret Smith, Silvia Sidney, on official business; pretending that he's on the case to find her missing grandson. O'Conner also find an audio tape that Leo left there implicating him and his partner as corrupt cops. O'Connor feels that Leo, who told him about the tape in the first place, must have made other tapes as insurance to keep O'Connor from murdering him and making him disappear.
The film then takes a turn where it's Leo not O'Connor who seems to be in control of the situation with O'Connor trapped in his own world of corruption and feeling that Leo had this planned all along. Later in an heated exchange between O'Connor and his partner Carvo at the apartment, over his treatment and confinement of Leo, O'Connor accidentally kills him and with Leo's help makes it look like Carvo was the victim of the police serial killer to throw the police off his trail. The movie starts getting even weirder when Leo tries to get O'Connor to murder Carvo's wife Lenore (Nicole Garcia). Both Leo and O'Connor feel that Lenore had found about her husband and Let. O'Connor's corrupt activities and make their murdering her look like she killed herself.
By now O'Connor is a totally destroyed man knowing that he was somehow manipulated by the clever Leo from the start. It's only a matter of time before the law, that he was sworn to uphold and enforce, will catch up with him and bring him before the bar of justice.
It was both Harvey Keitel and John Lydon's performances that made the film "Copkiller aka Corrupt" well worth watching. The cat-and-mouse game between the manipulator and manipulated kept you glued to the screen until the ending credits and made you overlook the films many faults and inconsistencies.
Narcotic plain clothes policemen are being murdered in New York City by this serial killer who dresses as a NYC policemen wearing a ski mask. The masked psycho kills the cops by slashing their throats with a long serrated knife. On the scene of one of the killers victims he left a phony police badge. While all this is going on we see NYC police Let. Fred O'Connor, Harvey Keitle, who's on "the take" with his partner police officer Bob Carvo, Leonard Mann, and who, together with Carvo, is living a double life. The two cops masquerade around as high living drug dealers at a $400,000.00 apartment overlooking Central Park. Everythings going well for the two plain clothes policeman until one afternoon when this weirdo Leo Smith, John Lydon, shows up at their apartment unannounced.
O'Connor at first doesn't know what to make of this oddball since he feels that he somehow has "the goods" on him in his illegal drug dealings, together with his partner. How else could Leo have known about his and Carvo's secret apartment and the double lives that they lead?
Later on Let. O'Connor finds out that Leo comes from a very rich family who live in the town of Rhiencliff in upstate New York and is being looked for, as a missing person, by the entire police departments in both NYC & Rheincliff. Having him locked up in his apartment O'Connor goes up to Rhiencliff to see Leo's grandmother Margaret Smith, Silvia Sidney, on official business; pretending that he's on the case to find her missing grandson. O'Conner also find an audio tape that Leo left there implicating him and his partner as corrupt cops. O'Connor feels that Leo, who told him about the tape in the first place, must have made other tapes as insurance to keep O'Connor from murdering him and making him disappear.
The film then takes a turn where it's Leo not O'Connor who seems to be in control of the situation with O'Connor trapped in his own world of corruption and feeling that Leo had this planned all along. Later in an heated exchange between O'Connor and his partner Carvo at the apartment, over his treatment and confinement of Leo, O'Connor accidentally kills him and with Leo's help makes it look like Carvo was the victim of the police serial killer to throw the police off his trail. The movie starts getting even weirder when Leo tries to get O'Connor to murder Carvo's wife Lenore (Nicole Garcia). Both Leo and O'Connor feel that Lenore had found about her husband and Let. O'Connor's corrupt activities and make their murdering her look like she killed herself.
By now O'Connor is a totally destroyed man knowing that he was somehow manipulated by the clever Leo from the start. It's only a matter of time before the law, that he was sworn to uphold and enforce, will catch up with him and bring him before the bar of justice.
It was both Harvey Keitel and John Lydon's performances that made the film "Copkiller aka Corrupt" well worth watching. The cat-and-mouse game between the manipulator and manipulated kept you glued to the screen until the ending credits and made you overlook the films many faults and inconsistencies.