Killing Blue (1988) Online

**SPOILERS** Just too hard to follow with too many sub-plots makes "Killing Blue" fall apart long before the movies unsurprising conclusion. That's about as exciting as an attack of insomnia.

Berlin homicide inspector Alex Glass is having a bad time with his conscience after he mistakenly shot and injured a little girl in a blotched attempt to arrest a fugitive in a Berlin apartment house. Upset with himself and his work Glass starts to drink and goes into a deep depression over his actions that crippled the girl for life. Glass secretly buys her gifts and presents to make up for what he mistakenly did to her. Even his new assistant Shirley May notices Glass' ugly demeanor with him treating her worse the the criminals that he deals with every day.

It's then that something happens that changes Glass' attitude when he becomes involved with the drug death of Ennis Warner. That leads right to Berlin District Attorney Michael Karstens doorstep who's daughter Monica was Ennis' best friend. Being very close to Karstens as both a friend of the lawman Glass took a personal interest in Ennis's death.

Finding that Ennis was a street hooker and druggie Glass tracked down her supplier lover and possibly murderer a small-time thug named Jack Miskowski. It turns out that Miskowski was with Ennis the night that she overdosed.The movie then takes a left-turn when high-priced hooker Lisa comes on the scene and Glass, after saving her from a over demanding customer, starts getting it on with her. Only to later find out, from a photo in Lisa's hotel room, that she and Miskowski are lovers as well as being involved in his drug and prostitution racket.

It also comes to both Glass and Karsten' attention that Karstens' teenage daughter Monica is a junkie and is also getting her drugs from Miskowski just like her late friend Ennis did. Michael in trying to get Monica away from Miskowski's clutches tries to stop her from meeting him but loses track of her only to find Monica the next day at a construction site strangled to death. Miskowski now Monica's suspected killer gets away from Glass and the Berlin police in a sting operation they set up for him.

It's then when the movie really turns upside down with Michael secretly meeting with Miskowski at an empty train station. With what at first looks like an exchange is about to be made between the two Miskowski gets a knife in his gut killing him with Michael taking off with a briefcase that the drug dealer had on him. In his car Michael finds out that he was doubled-crossed by the conning Miskowski but it's now too late for him to make things right for himself. Since Miskowski is no longer around to tell him where the "real deal" really is.

Murder blackmail and a major plot twist are the main ingredients to this convoluted police crime drama. That has the victim change into the real villain in the film as we see that he's not the goody goody two shoes that we thought that he was a the start of the movie.

Michael Karstens had very serious mental and emotional problems that he acted out some time ago and Miskowski somehow got a hold of a number of photos, or took them himself,that he was blackmailing him with. It also came out, unknowingly at the time to the audience,that Monica also knew about her step-father's secret life that in the end lead to her murder.

It was Inspector Glass who had an idea of what was the real reason for Miskowski's death. By him keeping it from the public is what brought Michael out in the open and thus expose his reasons for not only killing Miskowski but the real and unnerving reason to why he did it.

This review contains some spoilers, but I will do my best to avoid giving away important surprises.

The American video box for `Midnight Cop' features a bunch of shots of Morgan Fairchild, a few smaller ones of Michael York, and one of Frank Stallone. This led me to believe that these three were the most important characters. In actuality, the real star is the title character played by Armin Mueller-Stahl. Stahl wasn't a familiar face in America when this was distributed on video in 1989, which is probably why the box doesn't show his picture, but even its description avoids mentioning the central character as much as possible. That's too bad, since Stahl is a good actor, and in this movie he is in most of the film while Fairchild is more of a minor character, in my opinion. As the movie was rolling along, I was enjoying it for the most part, and figured it would be a sleeper hit. It wasn't great thanks the editing. While scenes in the movie were nice and gritty without being so glum that they make you ill, transitions were poor and it looked like the editor stuck scenes together using a jar of elementary school paste. However, I was still enjoying the cinematography and familiar but interesting story. Then something went terribly, terribly wrong.

Stahl plays a Berlin homicide police commissioner (though he acts more like a police detective). He is living with the mental trauma of not being able to see his own daughter anymore and the guilt of accidentally crippling a little girl in a shootout. He ands his new assistant (played by one of the screenwriters) get wrapped up in a strange murder case of a young woman that is killed with an overdose of heroin and gets Vaseline rubbed on her face. Stahl believes the killer to be drug dealer Frank Stallone. To try to get at Stallone, Stahl starts warming up to prostitute Morgan Fairchild. But the deeper he gets in the case, the more he starts to believe someone else is behind the murder and is trying to frame Stallone. There is more to the plot, but I do not wish to discuss it for I would have to reveal some aspects I should not give away.

That all sounds good, right? So what the heck happened? What caused it to sink like a stone? Well, for one thing there are the performances. Frank Stallone is actually very good as the dealer. He doesn't have enough screen time, but I could tell he is better at playing a bad guy than he is at the hero, such as his role in the lousy `Terror in Beverly Hills.' Michael York, playing a district attorney, is also very good in his role. Stahl is a mixed bag. When he is doing cop stuff, he seems uncomfortable and unsure of how to act. But when he is expressing emotion, he is very good. Fairchild, though, is sos bad she stinks up all her scenes. An annoying thing about the movie is the setting. I know it was filmed in Berlin, but you wouldn't be able to tell by using your ears. Stahl speaks with a German accent, York with a British accent, and everyone else with an American accent. They needed to either move the filming location or get and all-German cast. Or at least actors who could use a German accent. But the final thirty minutes really kill the good experience. I knew who the real killer was before the first murder took place. But the crucial answer as to why the murders are happening is never pinpointed. There are about three different theories thrown at you, but they don't make any sense when you try to group them all together or apply the motives to the second killing. There are two other things that are dreadfully wrong, too. One is the really terrible and really unbelievable love angle between Stahl and Fairchild. Come on! Who are they trying to kid here? The other is the pitiful final scene, completely unnecessary and totally contrived. Combined, these elements take what could have been a 6 or a 7 and lower them to a 4. And of course, there is also the vendor with a ladybug stuck to the top of his bald head, but I'll let you see that one for yourselves. Zantara's score: 4 out of 10.

This is the story of a police inspector who is carrying the weight of inadvertently injuring a little girl in the process of apprehending a drug dealer. A young woman is killed. He gets together with a prostitute in order to get more information and pursue the evildoer. In the process there is a series of encounters with Morgan Fairchild. It's all eye candy and voyeurism. There is little to recommend this movie. It is frenetic and wanders around all over the place. Of course, Morgan Fairchild, being the great Shakespearean actress that she is, puts forth a masterful performance. Armin Mueller-Stah, a German actor, and Michael York don't fair much better in their roles. It just didn't seem like it was worth the time.

Other than interesting looking locations and extras, I couldn't find much of interest to keep me watching. The acting was OK but I just couldn't buy things in the script such as:

• the old cop physically dominating someone younger - a cop that won't shoot a criminal who's clearly pointing a gun at him (I don't buy the psychological angle) - a police precinct where you can drink beer on the job

The fact that all the cast actually spoke in English, while it was obvious they were all in Germany, also hurt the film for me. It just intensified all the other incongruencies in the script to make the film feel like a naive attempt at an American style cop movie.

Still, given the previous positive reviews here, I will give the movie another chance in the future. Maybe my opinion of it will change.

I'm sure I must have seen a worse movie (though nothing comes to mind right now), but I've never seen a movie that was a bigger waste of talent. The script is barely coherent -- it's difficult to tell what relationship the characters have to one another -- and the director seems to have absent from the set for most of the filming. Put Armin Mueller-Stahl, Michael York and Monika Bleibtreu together and you could have an award-winning production. Instead we have ...well, let's be charitable and say that a couple of times Mueller-Stahl manages to break away from the truly awful writing and make Inspector Alex Glass into a *two-dimensional* character. Nobody else can even get past one. Yes, it really IS that bad.

West German police inspector Frank Glass has been turned into a cynic by his hard luck story of life & career – he refuses to fire a gun ever since he accidentally shot & crippled a young girl during a sting operation; his wife & daughter have left him; his workplace is being renovated to his detriment & he is also on the trail of a serial killer who smears Vaseline on his victims' faces. With the help of his new assistant Shirley May & a prostitute girlfriend named Lisa, Glass attempts to catch the killer when the daughter of a friend is killed in similar fashion. But what he doesn't know is that a local drug pusher has information critical to the case & when the dealer is attacked & put into intensive care, Glass finally puts his plan into motion.

Killing Blue (known in some places as Midnight Cop) is one of the most unusual police thrillers I have seen ever since I started writing film reviews. The film was made in West Germany in 1988, a year before the Berlin Wall came down & reunited Germany. Armin Mueller-Stahl plays the main character while Julia Kent, Morgan Fairchild & Michael York round out the supporting cast. In order to understand Killing Blue, you need to look at the context the film is in. The film deliberately goes for the offbeat look, with a police inspector who refuses to fire a gun, who has connections with the underworld & who seems to be hiding behind a wall of cheerful cynicism in order to cope with his own personal life. The film's story is interesting, mainly through small but important background details such as streets filled with underage streetwalkers, violent drug dealers & cops who routinely drink on the job. The murder case Mueller-Stahl is working on is there to give the film a narrative drive although the payoff at the conclusion is a little weak. Also weak is the way Mueller-Stahl resolves his guilt over the little girl's shooting at the end by simply dropping his pistol when the drug dealer he has been chasing gives up.

The acting is a tricky one to mark since the cast give a wide range of performances. Armin Mueller-Stahl is excellent as the main character while Julia Kent & Michael York are both adequate (although York is a far cry from his earlier works). On the opposite end of the acting scale, Morgan Fairchild, one of the period's worst actresses, goes through proceedings with a stony face & painfully flat delivery that makes the film drop to functional mediocrity.

"Inspector Alex Glass" (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is in charge of an investigation into the murder of several young women and the only suspect he has so far is a drug-dealer named "Jack Miskowski" (Frank Stallone). But Jack Miskowski is a hard man to find so in order to apprehend him Alex has to dig deep into the shady nightlife of Berlin. It's here that he meets a beautiful prostitute name "Lisa" (Morgan Fairchild) and falls in love with her. What he doesn't realize is that Lisa has a connection to Jack Miskowski and the deeper the investigation takes him the more dangerous it is to her. Now rather than reveal any more of the plot and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this movie starts off in a rather confusing manner. Throw in the murky scenery and weak character development and it gets even more bewildering. Even so I liked the sardonic wit of Armin Mueller-Stahl who managed to keep things interesting. Likewise, Morgan Fairchild looked quite fabulous as well. All things considered then I rate this movie as about average.

I saw this film under the title "Midnight Cop" which may or may not make any more sense than the German title "Killing Blue". Depending on your disposition, a coin toss could decide if you wind up liking this flick or not. The mystery of the multiple murders had possibilities, but got squandered away in a series of convoluted circumstances. Chief among them was an entirely unlikely pairing of police inspector Alex Glass (Armin Mueller-Stahl) with still-in-her-heyday blonde bombshell Morgan Fairchild as a hooker named Lisa. If I had to bet that Fairchild had done nude scenes, I would have put that at the beginning of her career, but here she bares intriguing body parts a couple of years after her 'Falcon Crest' days. Consequently her face and figure adorn cheapo American video sleeves even though she doesn't have as much screen time as Stahl and British actor Michael York who performs the expected twist in the latter part of the story. I'd be hard pressed to recommend this for anything other than it's oddly calibrated casting of Fairchild, York and Sly Stallone's brother Frank in a role that was underutilized, and might have earned him a couple of bonus points for playing the heavy. As for the story, it takes a number of quick jumps back and forth in time that make things confusing, and if that weren't enough, watching the old cop Alex (fifty eight at the time) grab a handful of Fairchild's assets calls for a bit more stomach than one might expect.

Inspector Alex Glass(Armin Mueller-Stahl)is on the trail of a serial killer who leaves Vaseline on the faces of his victims, dumping their bodies in secluded areas. We see in the opening of the film that Glass accidentally shoots a girl as an attempted arrest escalated into a shoot-out with a drug dealer who gets away. Glass also is burdened by an ex-wife who will not let him see or communicate with his daughter. The girl is a cripple and Glass is afraid of confronting her, leaving the little girl gifts as she tries to recuperate from her injuries. Meanwhile, Glass deals with renovations to his dilapidated Berlin precinct, a new associate/partner, Shirley May(Julia Kent) who he pesters for the hell of it, and a nasty drug dealer named Miskowski(an effective Frank Stallone, in a criminally underwritten role)who is the leading suspect in the murder of a murdered girl who seemingly died of an overdose. Glass has a friend and confident, lawyer Michael Karstens(Michael York..not his finest hour, to be honest)whose own sister was found dead, and pregnant in a meat plant freezer. When Karstens' own daughter is found dead the same way as the other victim(..also a ballet friend of hers), Glass will certainly have to fend off his alcoholism and sadness to stop the killing. Another plot development has Glass getting involved with a high-price call girl named Lisa(Morgan Fairchild, fatally miscast and, in my opinion, hurts the film)who has a relationship with drug dealing Mikowski, who is black mailing an important public official which reveals the answers to the film's ultimate mystery as to who is committing the murders.

I will admit that this is troublesomely convoluted, as mysteries often are, despite the fact that viewers who are paying attention will recognize who the killer is relatively early. But, Stahl's performance, in my opinion, is a must-see. He adds little touches and quirks to his character(..such as a funny little twitch with his nose, and little bit with a horn mouthpiece when bored during a stake-out of a person he's tailing)and is the kind of actor who adds dimension to a his detective which makes him interesting and believable. Stahl could've phoned it in, but he really makes the most of this part. Despite his flaws, Stahl is incredibly likable and vulnerable. When he's betrayed by someone in the plot, and is duped during the investigation, Stahl handles this perfectly. He's not a carciature whose detective knows every move of his quarry and has all the aces up his sleeve..I like this myself and was happy that he doesn't make all the right decisions. Yet, Stahl's character doesn't remain in a sulking state, and he isn't some cranky, angry sort always barking at people as is typical by boozing, down-on-their-luck detectives always seem in these type of films. I also thought the film was evocatively photographed in a moody neo-noir style capturing an effective Berlin where teenage prostitution, buildings in ruin, drug-abuse & sordid types all bathe the city streets where our Inspector works. Sometimes the score can be a liability, especially when the music hammers in certain scenes, but there's some jazz that I think added a nice little touch to the proceedings. I didn't care for the ending..a bit strange where the climax has the killer cornered in a meat plant where Stahl's detective sets up a dangerous scenario which could've been handled with a bit more finesse and an all too quaint close where Glass can appropriately exorcise that massive demon that's been plaguing him. But, worst of all, is having us buy into the relationship between Glass and Lisa. To be honest, Glass has better chemistry with his partner, Shirley..this would've been a more ideal pairing and they have a wonderful scene where they're caught in an uncompromising position thanks to a clumsy misstep when tailing Lisa hoping to catch up with Miskowski.

I mean really! What are you people thinking? What did you watch that I didn't? 3.9 STARS?!?!? What I saw was a movie with no clear definition of characters, no actual exposition of the plot, horrible editing, inappropriate sight gags that should have been on the "blooper reel", and some godawful acting. How can you possibly assign a positive integer to this film?

and it must be the director of this so-called movie. How he got actors on the caliber of Armin Mueller-Stahl and Michael York to make this one I have absolutely no idea. I'm not even sure who Stahl and York are supposed to be. I guess they're cops.