“Make it bigger than AIDS!” If a line of dialogue ever locked in a movie at the dead center of Reagan’s America, it’s that one. Once it hits, like that late-night slip into a warm bath, you know you’re home. Safe and sound, naturally, because you’re straight, white, well-armed, and dammit to hell, you pay your taxes. Pain is for the other fella. Crime runs rampant, but that’s for city folk, and you long ago left for the suburban oasis of your choosing. The home of shopping malls, clean parks, and kids playing outside – in the street, if necessary – because no one ever gets out of line.
The Big Apple, on the other hand, is in trouble. Always has been, if we’re being honest, and no one, from the garbage collectors to the meter maids, has enough energy to make things different. And that brings us to the police department. Crooked and lazy, in the style of the city itself, with civilization on the brink. Sure, arrests are made, and reports are filed, but none of it ever so much as moves the needle. Shrugging with indifference as a way of life.
Only there’s a new cop in town. A tough cop. A cop in the shadows. Faceless and nameless for damn near the entire movie, we know but one thing: he’s a maniac. Has to be, or the title wouldn’t make a lick of sense. Playing by his own set of rules, he’s setting the city on edge, to say nothing of the thin blue line, because they hate being shown up most of all. Happy to do little, until the bad press causes a fury. Only this is no vigilante. Paul Kersey was the epitome of law and order compared to this nutcase.
Before, only the stickers got stuck. Pushers, pimps, and killers sent to the place where toe-tags are handed out like Halloween candy. Now, innocent civilians are caught in the crosshairs. Teenagers dyin’ for the crime of making out at a stoplight. Sweet, inebriated lambs waking up with their necks broken. It’s so bad, it’s made everyone paranoid against the police, and a few good ones are getting shot along with the rest. Naturally, we’ll send in Tom Atkins to get to the bottom of it all.
Sure, we know Tom best from his heroic yet futile effort to rescue the world’s children from a demented Irishman in Halloween III. Made a few calls, saved a few lives, but he couldn’t stop it all. Body count stopped somewhere around ten million. In Maniac Cop, he’s out for redemption. But as far as he can tell, this cop is immortal. Witnesses say he was shot at least six times, including two in the head, and he kept on truckin’. Seems like a losing battle, but Tom’s all we’ve got. Tagging along with the robotic assassin is a crippled old hag, Sally Noland, one of those lifers who knows where all the bodies are buried, in addition to making one hell of a pot of coffee. She too has a story, something about losing her gait to a leg brace because she jumped out a window. Some say it was an accident. Some say it was love. Only she knows it was all for the Maniac Cop.
Before long, Tom learns the identity of the maniac: Matt Cordell. A name on everyone’s lips back in the day, because he got results. Had to set fire to a Constitution or two to get it done, but when you’ve got a gun in your face, you’re not about to insist on legal niceties. Only he went too far. One of those headline guys, when the down low is much preferred. He had to be taught a lesson. Put away, railroaded to save the force. Off to prison, where a key flashback sets the stage. Sure, Cordell was built like a Sherman tank, but when you’re showering, only so much you can do. This is Sing Sing, baby, and few leave the bath house in one piece. Cordell, being one of the pigs who put half these scumbags away, gets his. Stabbed and slashed with abandon, he’s left for dead in a pool of justice. Not even the coroner thinks he has a chance.
Only he wasn’t dead. Not really. I mean, he is dead, yes, and remains so, but he got up and hit the streets, so I guess that counts as alive. Who knows. He’s more Jason Voorhees than Serpico, and he still fits into his old uniform. Face a bit of a mess, but folks won’t be alive long enough to get nasty about it. His love, Sally, the poor sap, welcomes him back, and she’s on board for making amends. Only let’s cut into the crime rate a bit, even if I understand why you need to butcher every cop, attorney, and judge who sent you upriver. Just stick to the plan. Only he doesn’t. Something about being a maniac, I guess. And dead. Let’s not forget that he’s a goddamn zombie. Everyone up to and including the holy of holies – the Police Commissioner himself – is cut down. And when you can get to Richard Roundtree, you can get to anyone.
It spoils nothing to tell you that Bruce Campbell (as Jack Forrest!) is on board as a sex-starved officer, and though he’s caught in flagrante delicto at one point, his reaction is so disarming, you half believe the naked chick beside him is just there for a game of checkers. But that little indiscretion makes him suspect number one when his estranged wife ends up dead, carved to bits like a Sunday roast. And with her body nestled comfortably in the very no-tell motel of hours before, well, surely he’s guilty as charged. But we know Matt and Sally are behind it all, and it’s just a matter of time before the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards. Thankfully, before then, we’ll get an Atkins/Cordell fight scene, though Atkins gets tossed from a window with such force, you’d think a cannon was behind it. With him dead, it will be up to Bruce Campbell to save humanity. As it was meant to be.
The police van chase to end the film is a genuine hoot, and worthy of inclusion in any 80’s Action highlight reel. We all know Campbell will triumph, but what we didn’t know, unless we happened to check IMDB and see that yes, there was in fact a Maniac Cop 2, is that Matt Cordell, despite clearly dying again as the van flies off Pier 14, will channel Jason in the best manner possible and show signs of life. As the camera scans the watery grave, we see a hand. Just a glimpse, but unmistakable. Cordell is alive! Far from well, but just as committed to the cause. He may no longer have his beloved (she’s murdered, of course), but something about a TBI and being dead strips a man of romantic longing. The streets are far from clean, and he’s forever a maniac. A voiceless hero to stretch Reaganism into its second decade. You better believe he’s bigger than AIDS.
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