User Reviews

This review contains some spoilers, but I will do my best to avoid giving away important surprises.

The American video box for `Midnight Cop' features a bunch of shots of Morgan Fairchild, a few smaller ones of Michael York, and one of Frank Stallone. This led me to believe that these three were the most important characters. In actuality, the real star is the title character played by Armin Mueller-Stahl. Stahl wasn't a familiar face in America when this was distributed on video in 1989, which is probably why the box doesn't show his picture, but even its description avoids mentioning the central character as much as possible. That's too bad, since Stahl is a good actor, and in this movie he is in most of the film while Fairchild is more of a minor character, in my opinion. As the movie was rolling along, I was enjoying it for the most part, and figured it would be a sleeper hit. It wasn't great thanks the editing. While scenes in the movie were nice and gritty without being so glum that they make you ill, transitions were poor and it looked like the editor stuck scenes together using a jar of elementary school paste. However, I was still enjoying the cinematography and familiar but interesting story. Then something went terribly, terribly wrong.

Stahl plays a Berlin homicide police commissioner (though he acts more like a police detective). He is living with the mental trauma of not being able to see his own daughter anymore and the guilt of accidentally crippling a little girl in a shootout. He ands his new assistant (played by one of the screenwriters) get wrapped up in a strange murder case of a young woman that is killed with an overdose of heroin and gets Vaseline rubbed on her face. Stahl believes the killer to be drug dealer Frank Stallone. To try to get at Stallone, Stahl starts warming up to prostitute Morgan Fairchild. But the deeper he gets in the case, the more he starts to believe someone else is behind the murder and is trying to frame Stallone. There is more to the plot, but I do not wish to discuss it for I would have to reveal some aspects I should not give away.

That all sounds good, right? So what the heck happened? What caused it to sink like a stone? Well, for one thing there are the performances. Frank Stallone is actually very good as the dealer. He doesn't have enough screen time, but I could tell he is better at playing a bad guy than he is at the hero, such as his role in the lousy `Terror in Beverly Hills.' Michael York, playing a district attorney, is also very good in his role. Stahl is a mixed bag. When he is doing cop stuff, he seems uncomfortable and unsure of how to act. But when he is expressing emotion, he is very good. Fairchild, though, is sos bad she stinks up all her scenes. An annoying thing about the movie is the setting. I know it was filmed in Berlin, but you wouldn't be able to tell by using your ears. Stahl speaks with a German accent, York with a British accent, and everyone else with an American accent. They needed to either move the filming location or get and all-German cast. Or at least actors who could use a German accent. But the final thirty minutes really kill the good experience. I knew who the real killer was before the first murder took place. But the crucial answer as to why the murders are happening is never pinpointed. There are about three different theories thrown at you, but they don't make any sense when you try to group them all together or apply the motives to the second killing. There are two other things that are dreadfully wrong, too. One is the really terrible and really unbelievable love angle between Stahl and Fairchild. Come on! Who are they trying to kid here? The other is the pitiful final scene, completely unnecessary and totally contrived. Combined, these elements take what could have been a 6 or a 7 and lower them to a 4. And of course, there is also the vendor with a ladybug stuck to the top of his bald head, but I'll let you see that one for yourselves. Zantara's score: 4 out of 10.

Having discovered character actor Armin Mueller-Stahl in the terrific slice of life drama "Avalon" years ago, finding other movies of his in my movie viewing has been unexciting discovery, but unfortunately, this German set crime drama is nothing but softcore adult that is often funny to watch simply to discover how horrible the dialogue is. He is an aging detective with a guilt complex, having accidentally shot a young girl while on duty, and now involved in homicide investigations in the red light district, encountering prostitute Morgan Fairchild while dealing with his trashy new assistant (someone not even worth mentioning by name due to a ridiculous hammy unbelievable performance) and his various encounters with some odd characters, including an Asian contact he tosses racist wisecracks at (one referencing "The King and I"), as well as the soft spoken Michael York.

References to opera and other cultural phenomenon ring false, and it's eye rolling to see Stahl trying to get busy with Fairchild in a nightclub bathroom after some hoods who spot him and seemingly intend to assault him. His visits to some other odd night spots reveal more shallowness, and one Club indicating very bizarre alternate lifestyles includes the presence of a goat. I could find absolutely nothing memorable about any of this, and only give it a rank above bomb because I actually laughed at most of the dialogue, so if you watch this with an unintentional comical eye, you may do the same. Why actors like Stahl, Fairhild and York ended up in this with their characters being completely undeveloped and mainly tasteless is unexplainable, and while I generally like Fairchild, I felt truly embarrassed for her.

West German police inspector Frank Glass has been turned into a cynic by his hard luck story of life & career – he refuses to fire a gun ever since he accidentally shot & crippled a young girl during a sting operation; his wife & daughter have left him; his workplace is being renovated to his detriment & he is also on the trail of a serial killer who smears Vaseline on his victims' faces. With the help of his new assistant Shirley May & a prostitute girlfriend named Lisa, Glass attempts to catch the killer when the daughter of a friend is killed in similar fashion. But what he doesn't know is that a local drug pusher has information critical to the case & when the dealer is attacked & put into intensive care, Glass finally puts his plan into motion.

Killing Blue (known in some places as Midnight Cop) is one of the most unusual police thrillers I have seen ever since I started writing film reviews. The film was made in West Germany in 1988, a year before the Berlin Wall came down & reunited Germany. Armin Mueller-Stahl plays the main character while Julia Kent, Morgan Fairchild & Michael York round out the supporting cast. In order to understand Killing Blue, you need to look at the context the film is in. The film deliberately goes for the offbeat look, with a police inspector who refuses to fire a gun, who has connections with the underworld & who seems to be hiding behind a wall of cheerful cynicism in order to cope with his own personal life. The film's story is interesting, mainly through small but important background details such as streets filled with underage streetwalkers, violent drug dealers & cops who routinely drink on the job. The murder case Mueller-Stahl is working on is there to give the film a narrative drive although the payoff at the conclusion is a little weak. Also weak is the way Mueller-Stahl resolves his guilt over the little girl's shooting at the end by simply dropping his pistol when the drug dealer he has been chasing gives up.

The acting is a tricky one to mark since the cast give a wide range of performances. Armin Mueller-Stahl is excellent as the main character while Julia Kent & Michael York are both adequate (although York is a far cry from his earlier works). On the opposite end of the acting scale, Morgan Fairchild, one of the period's worst actresses, goes through proceedings with a stony face & painfully flat delivery that makes the film drop to functional mediocrity.

I saw this film under the title "Midnight Cop" which may or may not make any more sense than the German title "Killing Blue". Depending on your disposition, a coin toss could decide if you wind up liking this flick or not. The mystery of the multiple murders had possibilities, but got squandered away in a series of convoluted circumstances. Chief among them was an entirely unlikely pairing of police inspector Alex Glass (Armin Mueller-Stahl) with still-in-her-heyday blonde bombshell Morgan Fairchild as a hooker named Lisa. If I had to bet that Fairchild had done nude scenes, I would have put that at the beginning of her career, but here she bares intriguing body parts a couple of years after her 'Falcon Crest' days. Consequently her face and figure adorn cheapo American video sleeves even though she doesn't have as much screen time as Stahl and British actor Michael York who performs the expected twist in the latter part of the story. I'd be hard pressed to recommend this for anything other than it's oddly calibrated casting of Fairchild, York and Sly Stallone's brother Frank in a role that was underutilized, and might have earned him a couple of bonus points for playing the heavy. As for the story, it takes a number of quick jumps back and forth in time that make things confusing, and if that weren't enough, watching the old cop Alex (fifty eight at the time) grab a handful of Fairchild's assets calls for a bit more stomach than one might expect.

This is a cop drama/mystery/thriller?/ spoof? that takes place in the part of Berlin where everyone speaks English. Alex ( Armin Mueller-Stahl) is an old cop that people run away from as if he is a super cop. He has a dry sense of humor to him. While he is hunting a crime boss, a woman over doses on heroin. This leads him into the arena of drugs and brothels. He works with an assistant he doesn't initially like which adds to the dry humor.

Beck beer and Marlboro Lights product placement. People are heavy smokers, in fact a woman smokes while she is eating soup. There is some jazz detective music, but this is far from anything noir. While the film is not laugh out loud funny, it appears to have some humor we normally find in indie films.

The plot is not that great. The dry humor and flashback value would be the reasons to watch it. Also released under the title "Killing Blue."

PARENTAL GUIDE: No f-bombs. sexual situations, nudity

Inspector Alex Glass(Armin Mueller-Stahl)is on the trail of a serial killer who leaves Vaseline on the faces of his victims, dumping their bodies in secluded areas. We see in the opening of the film that Glass accidentally shoots a girl as an attempted arrest escalated into a shoot-out with a drug dealer who gets away. Glass also is burdened by an ex-wife who will not let him see or communicate with his daughter. The girl is a cripple and Glass is afraid of confronting her, leaving the little girl gifts as she tries to recuperate from her injuries. Meanwhile, Glass deals with renovations to his dilapidated Berlin precinct, a new associate/partner, Shirley May(Julia Kent) who he pesters for the hell of it, and a nasty drug dealer named Miskowski(an effective Frank Stallone, in a criminally underwritten role)who is the leading suspect in the murder of a murdered girl who seemingly died of an overdose. Glass has a friend and confident, lawyer Michael Karstens(Michael York..not his finest hour, to be honest)whose own sister was found dead, and pregnant in a meat plant freezer. When Karstens' own daughter is found dead the same way as the other victim(..also a ballet friend of hers), Glass will certainly have to fend off his alcoholism and sadness to stop the killing. Another plot development has Glass getting involved with a high-price call girl named Lisa(Morgan Fairchild, fatally miscast and, in my opinion, hurts the film)who has a relationship with drug dealing Mikowski, who is black mailing an important public official which reveals the answers to the film's ultimate mystery as to who is committing the murders.

I will admit that this is troublesomely convoluted, as mysteries often are, despite the fact that viewers who are paying attention will recognize who the killer is relatively early. But, Stahl's performance, in my opinion, is a must-see. He adds little touches and quirks to his character(..such as a funny little twitch with his nose, and little bit with a horn mouthpiece when bored during a stake-out of a person he's tailing)and is the kind of actor who adds dimension to a his detective which makes him interesting and believable. Stahl could've phoned it in, but he really makes the most of this part. Despite his flaws, Stahl is incredibly likable and vulnerable. When he's betrayed by someone in the plot, and is duped during the investigation, Stahl handles this perfectly. He's not a carciature whose detective knows every move of his quarry and has all the aces up his sleeve..I like this myself and was happy that he doesn't make all the right decisions. Yet, Stahl's character doesn't remain in a sulking state, and he isn't some cranky, angry sort always barking at people as is typical by boozing, down-on-their-luck detectives always seem in these type of films. I also thought the film was evocatively photographed in a moody neo-noir style capturing an effective Berlin where teenage prostitution, buildings in ruin, drug-abuse & sordid types all bathe the city streets where our Inspector works. Sometimes the score can be a liability, especially when the music hammers in certain scenes, but there's some jazz that I think added a nice little touch to the proceedings. I didn't care for the ending..a bit strange where the climax has the killer cornered in a meat plant where Stahl's detective sets up a dangerous scenario which could've been handled with a bit more finesse and an all too quaint close where Glass can appropriately exorcise that massive demon that's been plaguing him. But, worst of all, is having us buy into the relationship between Glass and Lisa. To be honest, Glass has better chemistry with his partner, Shirley..this would've been a more ideal pairing and they have a wonderful scene where they're caught in an uncompromising position thanks to a clumsy misstep when tailing Lisa hoping to catch up with Miskowski.