“Cop Land” is an entertaining crime drama and although I enjoyed it, I felt it had the potential to be significantly better given the film’s cast as it includes Sylvester Stallone (“First Blood”, “Cliffhanger”) and Robert De Niro (“Raging Bull”, “Taxi Driver”). This is a good movie but it could have been great.

Sheriff Freddy Heflin (Stallone) enforces the law in a peaceful suburban New Jersey community, which is populated with many New York City police officers. He slowly but surely comes to realise that the town is a front for the mob as he uncovers corruption with the help of an Internal Affairs investigator (De Niro).

Stallone gained some weight to help him portray one of his most realistic onscreen heroes. While he’s not terrific, Stallone gives a relatively strong performance. I enjoyed Robert De Niro’s performance but was disappointed by his lack of screen time and I felt he didn’t get enough scenes with Stallone. Harvey Keitel (“Reservoir Dogs”), Robert Patrick (“Terminator 2: Judgement Day”) and Ray Liotta (“Hannibal”) all appear in the movie and give good performances as some of the New York policemen that live in the town. I think Keitel is especially entertaining. Some of the characters do feel as if they either have too much or too little backstory.

“Cop Land” seems as though it should either be longer to give more information about the characters or somewhat shorter with a greater focus on fewer characters. This film is intelligent and features some enjoyable performances so I think I’m right in recommending it but I do feel as though this was a missed opportunity. The movie has received praise from many Stallone fans that see “Cop Land” as woefully underrated and I think with a clearer approach in terms of the storytelling, this could have been something really special.