My review was written in January 1988 after a Manhattan theater screening.
Burt Reynolds racks up three flops in a row on his current comeback trail (with two more pictures in the can) via "Rent-A-Cop", a cheesy little crime thriller. Maiden release from Kings Road Entertainment pointlessly reunites Reynolds with "Lucky Lady" co-star Liza Minnelli, but even her flamboyant thesing in a stock role fails to make this one watchable.
Pic starts off promisingly as a sort of followup to Reynolds' "Sharky's Machine", with him working again with fellow cop Bernie Casey on a big drug bust. Nutcase James Remar wipes everybody out except Reynolds, who is suspected of being crooked and bounced from the force. He gets work as a "rent-a-cop", working undercover (dressed as a Santa Claus) in a department store. In an awkwardly staged but key subplot, Minnelli, as a Chicago hooker, has been saved from Remar by Reynolds and now attaches herself to him for protection.
He laboriously traces the killer to a potential scandal involving hookers and ex-cops, with shady RIchard Masur the key link in the underworld chain. Loose ends of the plot are sorted out via gunplay.
Low-grade programmer is an inauspicious feature from tv helmer Jerry London, and plays on the big screen like a subpar episode of "Starsky & Hutch". Interiors were filmed in Rome evidently to save a buck, not noticeable except in a disco sequence where all the extras look Italian. Top creative team including cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno and scorer Jerry Goldsmith turn in uncharacteristically ho-hu work.
Reynolds looks bored and is boring here, with an ill-fitting toupe that is downright embarrassing from one closeup angle. Minnelli is a lot of fun as the flamboyant prostitute, but one inevitably wonders why no better role (or screen vehicle) can be concocted for the star, to exploit her musical talents. Ditto Dionne Warwick, absent from the screen since "Slaves" in 1969, and thoroughly wasted here as head of a call girl ring. Remar is laughably hammy as the narcissistic killer.