Cop

Cop (1988) is an American crime thriller you can watch online on iFILM, directed by James B. Harris and adapted from James Ellroy's novel "Because the Night." It is one of the more uncompromising cop films of the decade — not a heroic procedural, but a portrait of a man who uses the badge as permission.

LAPD homicide detective Lloyd Hopkins, played by James Woods, is convinced a serial killer has been working Hollywood for years. His supervisors don't see it. Hopkins sees a pattern: each victim attended the same high school a decade earlier. He pursues the case alone, ignoring department protocol and burning through what's left of his marriage in the process. Leslie Ann Warren plays a feminist poet pulled into the investigation in ways she didn't choose. Charles Durning appears as Hopkins' long-suffering captain, who knows exactly what kind of detective he has on his hands.

Woods makes Hopkins smart, effective, and genuinely unsettling — the kind of cop who gets results by methods you'd rather not think about. Ellroy's version of Los Angeles is brutal and unglamorous, and Harris keeps the film that way. Stream Cop (1988) online on iFILM.