One Good Cop

One Good Cop casts Michael Keaton as Artie Lewis, an NYPD Detective who’s forced to become a father to three young girls after his partner (Anthony LaPaglia’s Steve Diroma) is killed in the line of duty – with the arrangement compounded by Artie’s ongoing investigation into the drug kingpin (Tony Plana’s Beniamino) responsible for Steve’s death. There’s ultimately not a whole lot within One Good Cop for the viewer to enthusiastically embrace, as writer/director Heywood Gould employs an almost disastrously deliberate pace that prevents one from connecting to either the material or the characters – with the movie’s less-than-engrossing vibe compounded by a lack of authenticity and a needless undercurrent of eye-rolling sentimentality. Gould’s continued emphasis on the nitty-gritty of Artie’s efforts at caring for his partner’s kids is, to put it mildly, misguided, and it’s clear, too, that the filmmaker’s inability to effectively develop the narrative ensures that the slow atmosphere often borders on interminable. And although the movie does boast a handful of positive attributes, including a typically strong Keaton performance and a smattering of engaging sequences (eg Artie single-handedly robs a roomful of armed drug dealers), One Good Cop‘s movie-of-the-week approach ultimately prevents it from achieving anything even close to liftoff.

** out of ****