Chuck Norris' previous feature film for Orion Pictures was “Lone Wolf McQuade,” a modernized homage to the spaghetti westerns that first made Clint Eastwood a global superstar. His next Orion production would essentially see Norris stepping into a role not dissimilar from Eastwood's other most iconic reoccurring character. Screenwriters Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack, previously of “
The Car” and “The Gauntlet,” originally wrote “
Code of Silence” as
the fourth “Dirty Harry” movie. Eastwood passed on the script – Butler and Shryack ended up writing “Pale Rider” for him next instead – but the writers continued to shop it around as an original project. Orion eventually picked it up and eyed it as a starring role for
Kris Kristofferson. When he and half-a-dozen other tough guy actors passed, it ended up in Chuck Norris' lap. The film won the star the best reviews of his entire career and he would later cite it his favorite of his projects.
Eddie Cusack is a cop on the rougher side of Chicago. Along with his partner Dorato and a whole group of cops, he's part of a sting operation to bust a dealer working for Colombian drug lord, Luis Comacho. Instead, the set-up descends into chaos when killers in the employ of rival mobster, Tony Luna, open fire on the building. During the shoot-out, Dorato is shot, several crooks are killed, and another cop on the force named Craigie shoots an unarmed teenager. He then plants a gun on the dead kid. Cusack refuses to exonerate Craigie and ends up working with his inexperienced partner, Kopalas. As revenge, Comacho targets Luca's family, killing all of them except his teenage daughter, Diana. Seeking to protect the innocent girl, Eddie Cusack soon finds himself in a fight between mob families and with no fellow cops on his side.
Here in America, most major city's police forces are less concerned with protecting and serving the public trust than they are with protecting the rich and powerful,
extorting citizens for money, operating as enforcers of
the prison industrial slavery complex, murdering and harassing racial minorities, and
bleeding billions of dollars from local taxpayers so they can buy themselves tanks and body armor. In fact, they have no legal obligation to protect people and have
gone to court several times to prove this. However, if you're only encounters with American police are through our popular culture, you would think the cops are constantly under siege from organized crime, small time crooks, and damn regulators trying to get in the way of them doing their job. So-called “
copaganda” is unavoidable in this culture. I love me a good action flick, as this series should make clear, and likely the overwhelming majority of that genre is more-or-less about how police officers should have the right to do whatever they want and kill whoever they please. Because, damn it, they get results. You really have to totally disconnect fictional cops from real ones if you want to enjoy ninety percent of American action flicks.
“Code of Silence” is notable for being one of the few eighties action flicks I've seen that actively acknowledges how cops are terrible. Honestly, I was shocked by the film unambiguously depicting a cop killing a black teenager as an impulsive choice and then planting evidence to make the murder look justified. You hear about this happening
all the time now and I guess it's always been that way. Despite this set-up, “Code of Silence” is not an A.C.A.B. classic. Ralph Foody plays Detective Cragie as a despicable jack-ass who never feels any remorse at all for killing an innocent. Most of the cops around him believe it is their duty to protect their co-worker and stand-up for him. Eddie Cusack is the exception. He's the One Good Cop on the force that prevents all of them from being bastards. His testimony proves that the system works. His example gives at least one other officer the strength to also do the right thing. The film is not saying that the entire police system in America is fundamentally rotten but merely that it needs more “good” cops than bad ones.
I almost think “Code of Silence” is aware of the obvious contradictions in this statement. After the rest of the precinct basically cuts him off, Cusack goes outside of the law to do what is right. He is heading into bars and picking fights, clinging to the outside of moving trains, getting into car chases. The climax of the film involves him stealing heavy artillery from the police station and using it on his own. All of this is obviously illegal, the “good” cop ending up breaking the law just as much as the dirty ones. “Code of Silence” can't step outside of its eighties action movie viewpoint. Cusack's cowboy cop ways save the day. He faces no consequences for it. He continues to be a cop, when the obvious moral of the story would be him leaving the force at the very least. The movie comes dangerously close to realizing that any system where such wanton destruction is the “best” ending is hopelessly broken. But it's still an action flick so it can't go that far.
This is not so much a criticism as an observation. That a movie starring Chuck Norris manages to address these ideas with any sort of depth at all is surprising. “Code of Silence” benefits greatly from having a far grittier tone than most of the star's previous movies. The dialogue is hard-boiled, with quite a lot of colorful profanity. A strong supporting cast takes further advantage of this, with Dennis Farina as Dorato especially getting to dig into his part. The cinematography is from Frank Tidy, previously of “The Duelists,” and he gives the film a properly gritty, lived-in look. Director Andrew Davis, coming off atmospheric slasher “
The Final Terror,” helpfully captures a sense of circumstances spiraling out of control for its hero. By the time he's getting wailed on in a bar, the feeling that he has no one to turn to and that the walls are closing in is clear.
As at odds as these two threads of “Code of Silence” are, I think the film actually does a very good job of balancing its status as both a cheesy action movie and a grittier neo-noir. You see this in the bar room brawl, which has Chuck doing both his trademark moves and still getting beaten up in time. The pacing is extremely fleet-footed, the film rarely not building towards its next set-piece. That sequence where Chuck is chasing a guy across a moving train is both an impressive stunt and a good example of how the film plays with how very vulnerable its hero is, in opposition to the invincible eighties action hero cliché. That car chase is actually fantastically assembled, with a wonderful shot of the vehicles sparking against the asphalt as they leap through the air. That the film manages to successfully capture an air of gritty realism and end with an over-the-top smorgasbord of explosions and gunfire that prominently features a remote controlled robot tank is certainly some kind of achievement.
By this point in his career, Norris has indeed developed into a decent actor. He's not Oliver or anything but he's become adapt at summoning up a certain degree of emotion. The scenes he shares here with an old friend are a highlight. “Code of Silence's” great weakness is that its primary villain isn't in more of the film. Henry Silva, owner of one of cinema's
all time greatest psycho faces, gets to sleaze it up gloriously as a Colombian drug lord while still feeling strangely absent for most of the film. I also wish we got a little more interaction between Chuck and Molly Hagan as the distressed damsel, who he shares a distinctly fatherly energy with. Oh yeah, the movie is also set at Halloween, as if I needed another reason to like it. Contradictions at all, “Code of Silence” is some well engineered pulp and easily Norris' classiest flick. And Andrew Davis would go on to become the only filmmaker to direct
two Steven Seagal films and a Best Picture nominee...
[8/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
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