Credit: Annapurna Pictures
Out on the home formats from this week is the brilliant Destroyer, a crime drama featuring a stunning performance from Nicole Kidman, who is virtually unrecognisable in the movie. The story revolves around Erin Bell, a hardened Los Angeles cop, who is haunted by her past, and on the hunt for an old nemesis who has suddenly resurfaced. What follows is a relentless pursuit of the criminal, Erin looking to bring down him down while finally laying to rest her own personal demons before it is too late. To celebrate the release, we take a look at five of the best female cops from the movies, past and present.
Nicole Kidman stars as Erin Bell in Karyn Kusama’s DESTROYER, an Annapurna Pictures release.Credit: Sabrina Lantos / Annapurna Pictures
Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), Robocop (1987)
One of the greatest sci-fi movies of modern times, Robocop is a masterclass from filmmaker Paul Verhoeven. The film, released in 1987, focuses on a tough Detroit cop, Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) who is brutally murdered in the line of duty. Rather than being laid to rest, Murphy is transformed into a state-of-the-art cyborg, a so called Super-Cop to clean up the streets. While Murphy’s story is part of the main narrative, his former partner Lewis is equally as dynamic as she reconnects with him after his death, old memories coming back to haunt him. Allen is superb in the role, one she reprised in the two sequels that followed, but she’s never as good as she is this powerful original.
Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), Fargo (1996)
It’s hard to believe that 23 years have passed since the Coen brothers’ Fargo was released in cinemas. The film bagged two Oscars, one for the Coens’ superb screenplay, and another for the performance by Frances McDormand as small-time cop with a roadside murder case on her hands, Marge Gunderson. Marge, chief of police in the town of Brainerd, Minnesota, is about as kick-ass as female police officers get on-screen, and McDormand’s performance is wonderful and so well-deserved on her many awards. Over twenty years later, McDormand reunited with the Coens for the brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and got herself another Oscar in the process. Fargo, meanwhile, scored a TV spin-off which has so far run for the three wonderful seasons.
Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock), Demolition Man (1993)
Sandra Bullock’s break-out role was as Annie back in 1994 in the brilliant action movie Speed, but a year before that she was facing off against Wesley Snipes’ Simon Phoenix alongside Sylvester Stallone’s John Spartan in the futuristic sci-fi actioner Demolition Man. The film is set in 2032 San Angeles, the unification of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara, where Spartan is woken from a cryogenic sleep to hunt down Phoenix. Bullock is bad-ass as Lieutenant Lenina Huxley, an officer in the San Angeles Police Department, even though now violent crime is a thing of the past. She wakes Spartan to recapture Phoenix, who is on an aggressive rampage on the streets of the city. Huxley is a very strong female character, brought to the screen by a brilliant performance by Bullock.
Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis), Blue Steel (1990)
It’s back to the 1990s for our next kick-ass woman in the movie police; Jamie Lee Curtis as Megan Turner in the 1990 action flick Blue Steel, an early directorial effort from the Academy Award winning, trailblazing filmmaker Kathryn Bigalow. Turner is a rookie in the force who is tasked with shoots dead a suspect during a robbery of a convenience store. The robber’s gun is picked up by the psychopathic stock trader Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver) without Turner’s knowledge. What follows is 90 minutes of cat-and-mouse genre thrills with Hunt obsessing over the young officer. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert famously compared the film to Curtis’ break-out, the John Carpenter horror film Halloween, calling it ‘a sophisticated update’ of the classic movie released eleven years before. Blue Steel proved to be a great training ground for Bigalow too – her next film was the classic Point Break, arguably one the best action movies ever made.
Erin Bell, (Nicole Kidman), Destroyer (2019)
Bang up to date now with a film that, in my mind, displays Nicole Kidman’s huge acting range. Her performance as Erin Bell was unfortunately over-looked at this past season’s awards-race – put simply, you’ll not know it’s her as the dishevelled cop stumbles out of her car having slept in in overnight at the beginning of the movie. The character goes on quite the journey during the film’s two-hour run-time, a stand-out moment being a third-act bank heist that rivals the one seen in Michael Mann’s 1995 classic Heat, one led by the fearless Bell as she closes in on the bad guys. Also amongst of the cast of Destroyer are the likes of Toby Kebbell, Sebastian Stan, Bradley Whitford, and Scoot McNairy, all of whom, under Karyn Kusama’s on-point direction, shine in every way.
DESTROYER starring Nicole Kidman is out to download now and own on DVD/Blu-ray from Monday.
