The Wrong Arm of the Law

So here we are, back in it for the last of the Maniac Cop films, Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence. I would like to say that somehow this series went out in a blaze of glory, but while it does feature its titular character getting lit on fire more than once, it’s not actually the good kind of blaze we’re looking for. I know it’s silly to expect anything from this low-budget, direct-to-video, to a not at all beloved three-quel, but still. One could hope that the people working on the film cared enough, and had the capabilities, to make something good out of what they were given. And that, right there, was too much to ask.

Although, honestly, some of the weakness with the film came not from who was working on it but due to the demands of the Japanese distributors for the film. The original plan was to have a black detective investigate murders at a Harlem hospital, and the production team had already been hard at work, script in hard, scouting locations and hiring actors, before word from the Japanese distributors was that they didn’t want a black lead character for the film. They, instead, wanted Robert Davi's Lieutenant Sean McKinney to return for another round, and they eventually got their way.

Reportedly, though, this left the production team in something of a bind because whole portions of the script had to be thrown out in the process. Original writer Larry Cohen refused to do a rewrite on the script unless he was paid for it (which production house First Look Studios refused to do). As such, director William Lustig had to improvise his way around the script as well as he could, and he was so offended by the end result that he took his name off the film entirely (crediting it to perennial no-name director, “Alan Smithee”). That’s never a good sign.

Thing is, the end result isn’t entirely unwatchable. It’s certainly not good, with a villainous undead cop brought back from the grave going up against a heroic cop who takes things too far. There’s no middle ground between the characters, no way to identify one as truly good and the other as truly evil. It’s just that everyone is shitty and a lot of people die. But the action isn’t entirely bad and there are moments where a halfway decent film almost manages to come together. It’s just that these moments are few and far between and the film, as a whole, is pretty crappy. But then, it’s a Maniac Cop film, so we all need to stop having such high expectations (or any expectations at all).

Maniac Cop Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar) is brought back from the dead by a voodoo priest so he can go out and get his due vengeance. His soul wasn’t at rest, and the cop decided there was more killing he could do, people that deserved his level of street justice. Like the people that want to frame Officer Katie Sullivan (Gretchen Becker), his former wife, for a crime she didn’t commit. She was a responder on the scene of a drugstore robbery where a shooter, Frank Jessup (Jackie Earle Haley), mowed down a bunch of cops. Katie goes in, brings down the bad guy, but while her back is turned, the drug store attendant picks up the gun to shoot Katie. The attendant was in on it, and Katie ends up shooting her too, but not before taking a couple of slugs as well.

There were a couple of reporters on the scene, and they captured the whole thing. However for the news they cut the footage down to make it more salacious, making it look like Katie was another “Maniac Cop”, and that she gunned down the attendant in cold blood. Many on the force want her brought to justice, which means taking her near lifeless body off life support while paying Jessup a bunch of money to go away. But Cordell shows up, and he wants to kill everyone that did Katie wrong. Oh, and McKinney is there as well, wanting to prove Katie’s innocence because she’s his friend and… well, that’s about it. Who will win, and who will die, with justice on the line?

Let’s be clear, this movie’s plot is all over the place. McKinney, despite being the protagonist of the film, actually ends up feeling superfluous to the story of the Maniac Cop. Sure, he is there to work Katie’s case and try to figure out what actually happened, but mostly he just stands around, begs Katie to stay alive, and puts the moves on Katie’s doctor, Susan Fowler (Caitlin Dulany). If you cut McKinney out of the film it really wouldn’t make much of a difference to the overall story. You’d just need some generic guy or another to kill the Maniac Cop in the end. It just so happened to be McKinney, a guy that barely has any connection to the undead cop.

In fact, for much of the runtime it feels like no one has a connection to Cordell. He gets resurrected by the voodoo priest for reasons that are never really explained (and were likely part of the script they had to throw out when the protagonist was changed). Katie is only revealed to be Cordell’s former wife in a dream sequence two-thirds of the way into the film, and even then it’s kept vague. How Cordell knows who to kill, why, or when, is also never explained. Crap just happens, and for a while there’s no explanation at all for the story. You have to piece it all together later because the film really can’t justify anything that’s going on.

If it weren’t for the actors giving it their all, this film would be utterly unwatchable. But the fact is that for as bad as this film is (and it really is bad), the cast is quite game. Davi is solid as the put-upon cop that has seen too much and has very few fucks left to give. The few scenes Becker gets before her character is put into a coma are solid enough that you do actually care about what happens to her. And the film sports an early role for Jackie Earle Haley who is, frankly, great in everything I’ve seen him in, including this movie. These actors are all too good for this film.

Sadly, as far as being a good movie, Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence fails. It’s even worse as a horror film because it’s just not scary at all. Not only is the story of this film bad, but the kills are even worse. There’s little gore, and the staging and production doesn’t know how to mine tension from the scenes they set up. Some of the kills are also unbelievably stupid, like one doctor getting electrocuted from shock paddles, or another dying via X-ray machine. Just, we have to assume, getting cooked by the rays. Pretty sure, in both cases, that’s not how that works at all. What other kills we do get are dumb, quick, and over before they get interesting. Somehow this film got an NC-17 rating for its release and I just don’t see how.

So yes, I’m happy the actors got to do their thing and get paid to be here. Good actors deserve their paychecks, and everyone in this film more than earned their money. But as far as actually creating something you want to watch, Maniac Cop II: Badge of Silence fails, and fails hard. It’s a film you want to like, especially because of its game cast, but there’s just not enough here to actually recommend it. The best thing you can say about this film is that it was so poorly conceived, and made so little money upon its release, that it spared us from any further sequels afterwards. Thanks for that, at least.