Killing Blue

I mean really! What are you people thinking? What did you watch that I didn't? 3.9 STARS?!?!? What I saw was a movie with no clear definition of characters, no actual exposition of the plot, horrible editing, inappropriate sight gags that should have been on the "blooper reel", and some godawful acting. How can you possibly assign a positive integer to this film?

This is the story of a police inspector who is carrying the weight of inadvertently injuring a little girl in the process of apprehending a drug dealer. A young woman is killed. He gets together with a prostitute in order to get more information and pursue the evildoer. In the process there is a series of encounters with Morgan Fairchild. It's all eye candy and voyeurism. There is little to recommend this movie. It is frenetic and wanders around all over the place. Of course, Morgan Fairchild, being the great Shakespearean actress that she is, puts forth a masterful performance. Armin Mueller-Stah, a German actor, and Michael York don't fair much better in their roles. It just didn't seem like it was worth the time.

Other than interesting looking locations and extras, I couldn't find much of interest to keep me watching. The acting was OK but I just couldn't buy things in the script such as:

• the old cop physically dominating someone younger - a cop that won't shoot a criminal who's clearly pointing a gun at him (I don't buy the psychological angle) - a police precinct where you can drink beer on the job

The fact that all the cast actually spoke in English, while it was obvious they were all in Germany, also hurt the film for me. It just intensified all the other incongruencies in the script to make the film feel like a naive attempt at an American style cop movie.

Still, given the previous positive reviews here, I will give the movie another chance in the future. Maybe my opinion of it will change.

My review was written in April 1989 after watching the film on Vidmark video cassette.

Aimed at the international market, "Midnight Cop" is an okay tongue-in-cheek cop thriller, befitting immensely from the casting of top German character actor Armin Mueller-Stahl in title role.

Bookended, like Martin Scorsese's "New York Stories" segment, with "A Whiter Shade of Pale" on the soundtrack, pic limns Berlin inspector Glas (Mueller-Stahl) hunting for a serial killer of pretty girls who's m.o. Is to rub vaseline all over the corpses' faces. Jila Kent (who also co-scripted) is his pretty new sidekick. Bad guys include guest stars Michael York and Frank Stallone.

Morgan Fairchild dresses things up a bit as a call girl who eventually serves as a decoy to trap the killer. Tony Curtis' daughter Allegra, who looks a bit like mom Christine Kaufmann, makes a good impression as one of the victims.

Though plot meanders a bit, Mueller-Stahl holds it together with his mock-impression of "Dirty Harry" tactics. Handling his English-language dialog with ease, he has subsequently landed a co-starring role opposite Jessica Lange in Costa-Gavras' "The Music Box".

Tech credits are fine and pic overall marks a step up in the mid-Atlantic genre for Austrian helmer Peter Patzak.

"Inspector Alex Glass" (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is in charge of an investigation into the murder of several young women and the only suspect he has so far is a drug-dealer named "Jack Miskowski" (Frank Stallone). But Jack Miskowski is a hard man to find so in order to apprehend him Alex has to dig deep into the shady nightlife of Berlin. It's here that he meets a beautiful prostitute name "Lisa" (Morgan Fairchild) and falls in love with her. What he doesn't realize is that Lisa has a connection to Jack Miskowski and the deeper the investigation takes him the more dangerous it is to her. Now rather than reveal any more of the plot and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this movie starts off in a rather confusing manner. Throw in the murky scenery and weak character development and it gets even more bewildering. Even so I liked the sardonic wit of Armin Mueller-Stahl who managed to keep things interesting. Likewise, Morgan Fairchild looked quite fabulous as well. All things considered then I rate this movie as about average.