Errol Morris
1988
103 minutes
This is a documentary by Errol Morris with two things going against it watching it in the modern era. The first is the sort of "Seinfeld effect", where the style and technique was so successful and endlessly copied that it no longer seems unique. In particular, some of the scenes are re-enactments as we grew accustomed to seeing in true crime shows like Dateline NBC and Unsolved Mysteries. The second is the name, invoked here somewhat ironically, which leads a viewer now to thinking it will be a documentary about police corruption of police glorification instead of the rather mundane crime story about a senseless murder and a man who was wrongly convicted for it. The back story is even a bit more interesting than the story in the documentary itself, as well done as it is.
You've long had an uncomfortable relationship with the police. In some of the jobs you've worked, particularly in driving a taxi, they were more like something to be avoided rather than hated. You certainly weren't afraid of using the threat of them to corral uncooperative passengers. Many of your friends, quite predictably, were not great fans of the police. They had more reason to want to avoid them than you did, for various reasons, based on their own professions or backgrounds or skin colors or ethnic heritages.
As a cabbie, you actually ended up having quite a bit of empathy for the police in some ways. You frequently dealt with the same kinds of people--rowdy drunks and criminals and druggies and other lowlifes--at all hours of the night. You always gave them quite a bit of street cred over people you knew who had zero exposure to these characters. Many people have never had to deal with crackheads and crazies and go to dangerous parts of town to do dangerous things. As for the concept of a "thin blue line", as vile as you found it, you could respect the sort of esprit de corps that police would demonstrate amongst each other for others who did the job. You saw the same thing in other groups you had exposure to. Literal soldiers and bartenders and strippers and criminals often had the same sort of bunker mentality when it came to circling the wagons around outsiders. Cabbies certainly shared this mentality. If you did the job you were one of us. And if you didn't, then you wouldn't understand what we put up with.
On the other hand, you also had quite a bit of contempt for the police whenever they would get whiny about their jobs. You were out there dealing with the same sorts of people. The major difference, however, was that the police were doing it with the benefit of having a badge and a gun and a pretty decent amount of support from the state to back them up. You were out there alone with just your wits and no weapon aside from a four-battery Maglite. If someone swore at you and threatened you or threw a punch, which frequently happened, there was very little chance they would face any punishment for it. And much of the time you were carrying a few hundred dollars of cash in your shirt pocket, which painted an enormous target on your head.
Hearing police whine about how dangerous their jobs were and how justified they were in using force against some drunk who did nothing more than mouth off to them was laughable to you. You have the same sort of contempt for the kinds of pussies who are terrified to go into the city without some kind of concealed carry weapon. They wouldn't last five minutes facing some of the worst shit you've been through.
Time to choose something different: