ONE TOUGH COP

Starring Stephen Baldwin, Chris Penn

Directed by Bruce Barreto

Stratosphere Entertainment

One Tough Cop.

One can't help but say the title of this movie slowly, in a portentous, ominous and deep tone, like the one used by that guy who does all of the voice-overs for those action-movie trailers. Go ahead, say it out loud.

One Tough Cop.

Sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? Like maybe the main character will be some sort of cyborg police officer saving the world from space pirates in the year 3020. Well, he's not, and it would be a stretch to call this movie exciting. A mighty long stretch.

One Tough Cop fails to live up to the drama insinuated by its title, and resembles a very dull "Law and Order" episode more than it does one of the Robocops or Terminators.

Not to say that films in this standard police-drama genre can't be exciting and dramatic.

L.A. Confidential did very well with its mix of a cool cop, a seductive woman and an unusual crime. And One Tough Cop does have all of the ingredients for a cop movie; they just aren't of very good quality and the cake ends up being a little stale.

One Tough Cop is inspired by a book of the same name by Bo Dietl, the main character of the movie. The real Dietl gained recognition when he caught two men who raped and nearly killed a nun in a New York City convent in 1981, resolving what then-mayor Ed Koch called "the most heinous crime in the history of New York City." The movie includes this event, as well as Dietl's friendly relations with members of the mob and his problems with the police station hierarchy. It looks like screenplay writer Jeremy Iacone, however, relied on more than the book for inspiration. He seems to have borrowed from a multitude of sources in constructing his story, creating a virtual menagerie of unconnected events and characters.

To illustrate: the movie opens with Dietl (Stephen Baldwin) and his partner Duke (Chris Penn of Rumblefish and Reservoir Dogs) stopping the robbery of a homeless man in a pathetically choreographed fight reminiscent of the TV show "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." Next! Dietl holds a little girl as he witnesses her father kill himself. Next! Dietl goes to a dinner party with the mob. Next! Two very angry FBI agents (not unlike Fox Mulder and Dana Scully of "The X-Files" in appearance and manner) are out to get Dietl. Next! Duke comes out as a debtor, an alcoholic, a compulsive gambler and a holder of $11,000 in parking tickets. Next! Dietl is in bed with his best friend's girlfriend.

And so on and so on. Eventually these random events start to connect, but it is far too little too late. It is never clear what the movie is really about, and the only unifying factor is that Baldwin is in every scene--and that's not a good thing.

Stephen, the youngest of the famous Baldwin brothers, doesn't play Dietl. Rather, he maintains a single facial expression of pouty sulleness and says the lines written for the character. He never gets angry, scared or sad, even in reaction to the deaths of characters with whom he has deep personal relationships. Baldwin did look tough, though, and came off as a cop, but looking real and natural aren't necessarily the hallmarks of good acting. Who wants to pay seven dollars to watch what they could see at the local donut shop? In the absence of a cohesive storyline and interesting characters, the audience has to focus on Baldwin, who doesn't give us much to look at.

The rest of the cast doesn't make up for Baldwin's shortcomings. Chris Penn portrays Baldwin's partner Duke Finnerty as a wasted Joe Pesci (annoying accent and all), and Gina Gershon as girlfriend Joey is one-dimensional at best. It just seems like nobody tried very hard to make this film. One Tough Cop might have passed as a mediocre episode of "NYPD Blue," but it ultimately fails as a feature film.