Un commissario all'inferno

Large swaths of this movie, starting with the plot and including word-for-word blocks of dialog, come out of the movie Twelve O'Clock High, which appears to be uncredited, at least here. The setting has been changed from an American Army Air Force base in England in 1942 to a Chicago police department, but the essence of the plot -- new leader comes in to turn around an organization that is falling apart -- is the same. Unfortunately, most of the drama and insight was lost in the translation, producing scenes that simply don't make sense, or mess up the intent of the original. Whereas a key element of Twelve O'Clock high is about the high toll of warfare even on those who think they are doing the right thing, this movie boils down to "Suzanne Pleshette is tougher than everyone else." There is a deliberate contrast and parallel between the first leader (Gary Merril) and the second (Gregory Peck), but this movie basically begins with Suzanne Pleshette taking over, thus eliminating any sense of commonality under fire. Go see Twelve O'Clock High instead -- it's based on the true story of General Frank Armstrong, and was well and thoroughly researched.

So, you're watching a film made in the 80's about a female police sergeant who's been brought into clean up a corrupt precinct. What do you expect from your hour-and-a-half's worth of entertainment?

Gritty realism? Authentic violence? Bad language? Perhaps, given the gender of the new gal in charge, a bit of underlying sexual tension between the lady officer and her mostly chauvinistic male coppers?

Maybe it's the fact that this is an undemanding Made-For-TV. Maybe they sanitised it too much to try appealing to a wider audience. Or perhaps, the director and writer were just plain crap.

In any case, what you have instead is a rather boring tale of the new Ma'am dealing with a simple case of burglary in the department, knocking a few heads together and solving the problem with relative ease. Oh, and a few scenes where you sits at home moaning to her hunky husband about how 'tough' her new job is. Bless!

That's it. No real excitement, tension or God forbid, anything vaguely interesting happens whatsoever. There's a lot of tedious conversations that lead nowhere and bad attempts at jokes though... so if you like that kinda thing, I guess you're in hog heaven.

Now I hate genre cliches as much as the next guy, but what I wouldn't have given for a nice, juicy car chase or shootout to relieve the ongoing blandness.

No such luck. And if they were trying for a small-scale drama instead, that doesn't here work either. Everything feels too clean compared to what a REAL police station would be like if it was dripping with corruption, and the glaring absence of anything vaguely controversial means the whole enterprise feels as phony as a four dollar bill.

So in other words, it's a complete strikeout on all fronts. Avoid, avoid, AVOID.

Oh, as a final insult (because after suffering through this I'm in no mood to be charitable) the opening titles are some of the worst I've ever seen. Yeesh. 3/10.

Suzanne Pleshette is the star in what is obviously a failed TV pilot of a female police captain being assigned to a rough and corrupt precinct in Pittsburgh. This place is so bad that she has to proceed cautiously, not knowing who to trust. The only trust here is that which Chief Danny Aiello placed in her to get the job done.

Two of the precinct's cops have busted for doing a little moonlighting as burglars and one of the sergeants is killed upon her arrival. Not easy to separate the good ones from the bad ones at this precinct known as the 'sewer'.

Pleshette made a good and forceful commander and she's supported on the home front by her architect husband Frank Converse. The most interesting of the characters in the story is the one played by young Jon Tenney as the recent transfer and fairly young cop. Given what he does, he'll have a limited future in the Pittsburgh PD.

Alone In The Neon Jungle would have made a nice series.

As my fellow reviewer pointed out, the only crimes committed in this city is prostitution and minor burglary! Not exactly the worst crimes in the world, to say it's supposed to be the 'sewer of lowlifes,' it doesn't seem that bad compared to some major cities around the country.

Still, it is a TV movie so it's somewhat sanitised and not going to be Al Pacino's 'Scarface' for instance. For something from this maligned genre, it's fairly watchable and again, I've seen far worse examples. The plot is very predictable, 'new captain goes to corrupt police station and cleans it up.' Since she's a woman, maybe she should have taken a mop & bucket and a duster....only joking! Please, no letters complaining of sexism.

As to be expected, she sorts out the bad eggs and gets the decent cops back online. While there, there's also the matter of the mystery killer behind the death of another officer. But this is a no-brainer as we see the man early on doing the murder, although, cloaked in shadows, it's pretty easy to see by his height, build and colouring, who he is! No surprise when he is later revealed.

Suzanne Pleshette makes a decent fist of the lead role, although, as pointed out by another reviewer, her nodding dog in the back of the car style of acting is somewhat irritating at times. A small part by Danny Aiello as well before he went on to bigger and better things.

Acting honours go to Jon Tenney as the naive rookie, Hansen who is slowly drawn into the sleazy corrupt world of his fellow officers. A nice understated piece of work that convinces.

In conclusion, watchable but nothing we haven't seen before in episodes of 'Kojak' or 'Starsky & Hutch.' And finally, to enlighten my fellow reviewer, Theo from Scotland, the correct phrase that was used to intimidate the informant was: "you know what happens to cops in prison? They get raped and THEN thrown off the top tier." As the sound recording quality isn't the best, not surprising it's hard to make out.

Suzanne Pleshette, (Capt. Janet Hamilton) gave an outstanding performance as an experienced female officer who has been assigned to clean up a bad section of Pittsburgh, Pa., where police officers rob jewelry stores and deal with prostitutes. Danny Aiello, (Chief) enlists the help of Janet to clean up this police station where even policemen are being killed because they know too much. Capt. Hamilton is also upsetting her husband and they are beginning to start going their separate ways until things start to change in the police station. There are many threats made to Capt. Hamilton, however, their were loyal officers who stood behind her and decided to start informing on their fellow officers. Suzanne Pleshette surprised me with her great acting as a tough Captain who could clean up a very bad police department.