Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Nick Nolte | ... | Max Hoover | |
Melanie Griffith | ... | Katherine Hoover | |
Chazz Palminteri | ... | Elleroy Coolidge | |
Michael Madsen | ... | Eddie Hall | |
Chris Penn | ... | Arthur Relyea | |
Treat Williams | ... | Colonel Nathan Fitzgerald | |
Jennifer Connelly | ... | Allison Pond | |
Daniel Baldwin | ... | McCafferty | |
Andrew McCarthy | ... | Jimmy Fields | |
John Malkovich | ... | General Thomas Timms | |
Kyle Chandler | ... | Captain | |
Ed Lauter | ... | Earl | |
Larry Garrison | ... | Perino's Maitre d' | |
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Chelsea Harrington | ... | Lolita |
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Johnna Johnson | ... | Bar Woman |
This film is about the adventures of a 1940's special anti-gangster police squad in Los Angeles, the infamous 'Hat Squad.' The four members of this squad are big, tough, no-nonsense cops who don't hesitate to break the law, if it suits their purposes. When a local woman is murdered, their investigation turns up the fact that she had been romantically linked to several prominent men and had secret films taken of her liaisons. Since one of those men is the powerful U.S. Army General at the head of the then-new Atomic Energy Commission and another is the (married) leader of the Hat Squad, complications ensue. The FBI even gets involved in an attempted cover-up. Written by Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>
This film has an excellent eye appeal due mostly to the efforts of Haskell Wexler (cinematographer). See more of his work in "Matewan","Bound For Glory" and "The Secret of Roan Inish".
Nick Nolte, one of America's best actors, gives us one of Film's best visual performances. Watch closely the scene in the cemetary with Melanie Griffith as Nolte,without words,displays a man who has lost the one thing that makes him love.