{"id":3881,"date":"2011-12-06T14:05:57","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T19:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2011-12-06T14:05:57","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T19:05:57","slug":"film-maniac-cop-3-badge-of-silence-1993","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3881","title":{"rendered":"Film: Maniac Cop 3 – Badge of Silence (1993)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>M<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: First Look\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: May 25, 2004<\/p>\n

Genre: Action \/ Horror \/ Crime \/ Exploitation<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Voodoo is used to bring the Maniac Cop back from the dead, where he seeks out justice, and a new bride.<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Although Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence<\/strong> written by Larry Cohen, there\u2019s a suspicion that things didn\u2019t quite click between the filmmakers and the executive producers (actually, the sentiment is verbalized in the Maniac Cop<\/strong> DVD commentary). MC3 is part sequel, satire, and Jason Voorhees riff, but while it has its genuinely fun and tongue-in-cheek moments, plot-wise, the film loses its mind around the first third, and quickly devolves into an incoherent mess.<\/p>\n

For William Lustig, there aren\u2019t enough sexy set-pieces to show-off his skills nor create elaborate action sequences, and by the film\u2019s finale there\u2019s been a lot of retreading. Footage from the first <\/a>[M<\/a>] & second<\/a> [M<\/a>] films are somewhat recapped in quick vignettes (not to mention repurposing several establishing shots, and Matt Cordell \u2018walking the beat\u2019 at night), but rather than exploit new locations, most of the drama involves Cordell (Robert Z\u2019Dar, packed with even more facial decay makeup) roaming through another building (a hospital) until a car chase that has the fiery zombie cop trying to run the hero & heroine into oblivion.<\/p>\n

The parallels to the Friday the 13th<\/strong> series are deliberate, but perhaps Cohen went too far in making things too referential and absurd, because Cordell is no longer a sympathetic victim in need of a coup de grace \u2013 he\u2019s just another monster in a face mask killing stupid people according to the film\u2019s regulated kill meter.<\/p>\n

To explain the re-emergence of Cordell, Cohen created a voodoo priest (played by wonderful character actor Julius Harris) who without any reason <\/em>brings the Maniac Cop back from the dead, and then without any plan, lets him hang around a crumbling church until someone (Lustig? Cohen? A producer?) hits upon the idea of Cordell wanting a zombie bride, which he almost acquires via officer Katie Sullivan (terrible Gretchen Becker), trapped in a coma after a drug store shootout with a scumbag.<\/p>\n

Woven into the film are satirical jabs at the media, the police and city establishments and medical wankers, and Cohen sneaks in some hysterically politically incorrect lines. Doug Savant (Desperate Housewives<\/strong>) steals the film with his outrageously rude put-downs of comatose Sullivan, while Robert Forster (who co-starred in Lustig\u2019s Vigilante<\/strong>) barters for primo basketball tickets with city slime-ball representative Hank Cooney (Paul Geason) in exchange for turning off Sullivan\u2019s life support systems.<\/p>\n

Lustig\u2019s peculiar quirk of filling roles of ex-Die Hard<\/strong> (1986) actors goes way further in MC3: in DH, Gleason played the ethically challenged police commissioner, while MC3\u2019s star, Robert Davi, has a coffee shop scene with Grand L. Bush; both actors played Agents Johnson & Johnson (\u201cno relation\u201d) in DH, and in their gimmicky MC3 scene, one can see the two actors trying to hide their amusement in the novel pairing.<\/p>\n

Davi, reprising his role as Det. McKinney, is the de facto star, and initially plays a guardian role to Det. Sullivan before a romance develops with sultry doctor Susan Fowler (Caitlin Dulany); and Ted Raimi takes over the role of local reporter from brother Sam.<\/p>\n

Cohen tries to juggle a several story threads, but it\u2019s no surprise the drug store thug, Frank Jessup (Jackie Earle Haley) is eventually shot to pieces close to the final act because he loses any dramatic purpose once he\u2019s brought into the hospital. His hospital escape is aided by Cordell, but Cohen never explains how a massive zombie cop manages to get through a guarded entrance in order to unshackle Jessup and give him a gun for a brief hospital rampage.<\/p>\n

The filmmakers also presume Cordell\u2019s been doing his own speech therapy between sequels, because while he was able to wheezily say his own name in MC2, in MC3 he\u2019s more articulate in an exchange with the voodoo priest and Det. McKinney.<\/p>\n

MC3 remains a glossy production, however, aided by Joel Goldsmith\u2019s synth \/ orchestral score, although based on the sampled chorals, chord hits, and synth effects, it\u2019s clear the film was temp-tracked with material from Jack Nitzsche\u2019s The Seventh Sign<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Like prior films, MC3 seems to have been filmed open matte, and was cropped to 1.85:1 for theatrical exhibition. The film was released on video in rated and unrated editions, with the latter featuring more details of bullets piercing bodies, swords poking through necks, and general zombie trauma toward annoying victims.<\/p>\n

Lustig would make two more feature films\u00a0\u2013 uncredited work on The Expert<\/strong> (1995), and the Cohen-scripted Uncle Sam<\/strong> (1997) – before retiring from feature filmmaking and concentrating on his home video company, Blue Underground<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0M<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ M . Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: First Look\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: May 25, 2004 Genre: Action \/ Horror \/ Crime \/ Exploitation Synopsis: Voodoo is used to bring the Maniac Cop back from the dead, where he seeks out justice, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[216,920,874,873,917,919,875],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-10B","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3897,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/3897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}