Aka The Ultimate
Ham. One of the greatest action movie (or “violence movie” as I like to call
them, more honestly) antagonists ever, Norman Stansfield is the sort of
character that provokes either eye-rolls or excited giggling at how
outrageously diabolical he is. Gary Oldman pulls out all the stops to portray a
rogue cop so utterly over-the-top in his corruption and self-aware depravity that
he murders families and threatens children with all the laviscious flair of a
circus ringmaster working an invisible audience of psychopaths and deviants. The
very idea that someone of Stansfield’s ilk could get employment as a law
officer in the first place, let alone rise high enough to be able to pull the
necessary strings to cover up his murderously hypocritical involvement in the
drug trade, is so ludricous that any suspension of disbelief is instantly
pulverised, setting Stansfield-heavy scenes at odds with the more serious tone
of the rest of the film. Yet there’s something so morbidly fascinating about
Goldman’s leering, perversely hedonistic, flamboyantly violent performance that
you can’t help but be entertained. His absurd affectations (classical music
plays inside his disturbed mind, acting as some sort of soothing counter-point
to the bloodshed he and his posse of pliable cop-accomplices deal out) come
across as some sort of black joke that only he and some imaginary demonic
spectators (that’s us, film-goers) can appreciate. So many action movie foes
are stock monsters without any noticeable traits beyond pedestrian nastiness,
so it’s refreshing to get a colourful mini-Mephistopheles played by a slumming
heavyweight.
No comments:
Post a Comment