Gene Siskel: Save for a "too neat" ending, I think "Cop Land" is one of the better films of the year.
Roger Ebert: I was disappointed in it, Gene...
Gene Siskel: Wow.
Roger Ebert: ... And that's especially true because James Mangold did such a great first film when he made "Heat" a year and a half ago. This film, to me, has too many characters, too many backstories, too many threads that it's trying to tie together, and doesn't really tie them together. This is enough material for two movies, there should've been a clear line from beginning to end, something to absolutely follow. More clarity in the storytelling. And the Stallone character is very much on, on one note until he comes into his own as an action hero again at the end of the movie.
Gene Siskel: The ending is not worthy of the characters'...
Roger Ebert: No.
Gene Siskel: ... Definition throughout the movie. But Roger, I would say, I would like to see more of it, a longer picture, which might've solved your problem, but that's because there's so much richness in it. Didn't you like the whole concept of the picture, that there's this town...
Roger Ebert: Yes, but I'm thinking how it might've been handled by someone like Scorsese, who would've really zeroed in, instead of...
Gene Siskel: That's a very high bar to put any director against. The highest bar.
Roger Ebert: Yeah, well, I might as well, because the fact is, here we have all of these lumps of story background that are thrown in, and the stolen files, and the old newspaper clippings, and all of the lugubrious plot developments...
Gene Siskel: I didn't think those were lugubrious, I thought that stuff, the stuff you just named, was exciting. I do recommend the picture.
Roger Ebert: "Exciting"?
Gene Siskel: Yes, I did.
