Yesterday I caught the last few moments of the movie Beyond the Law (1992), in which Charlie Sheen’s character, a cop who infiltrates a gang of arms-dealing bikers,
shoots Michael Madsen’s character, one of the bikers.
This of course reminded me of Reservoir Dogs, which came out the same year, about Tim Roth’s cop infiltrating a gang of diamond thieves and
shooting Michael Madsen’s character, one of the thieves.
And you may already know that Tarantino lifted RD’s basic plot from a Japanese film called City on Fire, about a cop who infiltrates a gang of arms-dealing diamond thieves!
Guns and diamonds apparently cause all crime in the world.
Then there’s 1991’s Point Break, in which Keanu Reeves’s cop infiltrates a gang of bank-robbers who also surf in their spare time. And in 2000’s Fast and the Furious, Paul Walker’s cop infiltrates a gang of tractor trailer-robbers who also drag race in their spare time.
Here’s what IMDB pulls up when I search for ‘undercover cop’ in plots. I’m too lazy to look into them all.
Infernal Affairs, a HK movie, about a cop who’s infiltrated the mob and a mobhand who’s infiltrated the police. Both don’t know who the other is. Being remade by Scorsese.
A Hong Kong film, actually. Directed by Ringo Lam, starring the great Chow-Yun Fat. I hate to nitpick, but I love that movie.
Speaking of Chow-Yun Fat, Hard Boiled is another amazing Hong Kong action movie, where Tony Leung plays a cop who infiltrates a criminal organization and goes deep undercover. It is directed by John Woo, and known for its over-the-top ballet-like gun battles. Woo, and Hard Boiled in particular, was a major influence on American action movie directors throughout the '90s and up to the present.
Donnie Brasco is a great movie, by the way… and it also has Michael Madsen!
The TV Show Tightrope had Mike Connors infiltrating organized crime groups to bring them down. Best remembered (when I watched it as a kid) for where he kept his gun: it was on his belt behind his back, so the usual pat down wouldn’t catch it.
In movies, there’s White Heat, where Edmund O’Brien plays an undercover cop who is trying to catch James Cagney, and ends up putting him on the top of the world.
I was coming over to this thread specifically to say that Fast and the Furious was Point Break in a Honda Civic, and without the President masks. But you said it for me. Honestly, the President masks pretty much made Point Break.
Serpico starred Al Pacino and was based on a book of the same name. There was some discussion at the release of the money just how autobiographical the book really was. The new movie based on phillip K. Dick’s book A Scanner Darkly also uses this idea. It will be interesting how to see how faithful the adaptation will be.
Black Dog: truck driving ex-con Jack Crews (Patrick Swayze) is hired by Red (Meat Loaf) for one last job even though getting caught driving would be a parole violation. Let alone getting caught with his cargo. What Crews doesn’t know is that one of the guys in his truck works for the Feds and they’re tracking the rig.
The writing isn’t that great but the action makes up for it, resulting in a movie that harkens to trucking movies of the 70s and 80s.
Not sure about Bad Boys but its sequel has two cops and one DEA agent trying to bust an Ecstasy ring–the cops from the outside and the DEA agent from the inside.
We might include the 1954 movie, Rogue Cop. Robert Taylor plays a corrupt cop, until his honest cop brother is murdered by the gangsters Taylor works for. Then he has his revenge.
In Fatal Conflict, Kari Wuhrer has to go to prison in outer space in order to infiltrate a gang of jewel smugglers who are threatening to ram a spaceship into Los Angeles. The movie is even stupider than it sounds, but it DOES have a bunch of hot slave babes in chastity belts and metal gags (so they can’t hide any jewels in tight places) who do the work on the jewels and who work practically naked for the same reason. And Kari Wuhrer who, sadly, isn’t one of them.
