ANALYSIS
No such thing as a good cop
Cameras have become crucial to exposing police brutality. Before people could use consumer-grade cameras to record the abuse cops would later try to deny, the most memorable footage of police violence was found in cinema, with anti-corruption films like
Serpico or Training Day countering the “copaganda” of police procedurals or the self-protective messaging of the force’s “blue wall of silence”.
This August, these two films are back in cinemas for the first time since and both engage with a myth that’s being increasingly questioned by current events – that law enforcement can ever be divided between “good cops” and “bad cops”. Despite depicting corruption in strikingly different ways, neither nor are able to pin down exactly what a just and moral police force would look like.
