Order of Death

This is a fairly routine cop thriller filmed in Europe with Keitel in an early "bad lieutenant" role. The film really gets interesting once Johnny Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, enters the scenario. Playing a spoiled punk sociopath, his cat and mouse with Keitel is enjoyable. Makes one wonder why lydon squanders his acting talents.

Offbeat weirdo Leo Smith (John Lydon) creeps his way into corrupt cop Fred O'Connor's (Harvey Kettle's) head to play mind games. John Lydon's lack of acting skills actually helps to make his character even kookier than he was probably written. And there's for sure a weird chemistry between Lydon and Keitel. Fred O'Connor is on the edge. Is Smith a psycho? Eventually one snaps.

It's a good, off-kilter psychological thriller.

I thought Harvey Keitel, a young, fresh from the Sex Pistols John Lydon, then as a bonus, the music by Ennio Morricone. I expected an old-school, edgy, Italian cop thriller that was made in America. Istead, I got a mishmash story that never made sense and a movie that left me saying: WTF!!! Too many unanswered questions, and not enough action. The result: a potential cult classic got flushed down the toilet. Keitel and Lydon work well together, so maybe Quentin Tarantino can reunite these guys with better script. Oh, and the Morricone score: OK, but not memorable.

Overall, not a waste of time, but not a "must see", unless you are a hardcore Keitel fan.

Roberto Faenza's stark, downbeat 'Cop Killer' (aka) 'Order of Death' (1983) is a paranoid, palpably grimy,intermitently intense NYC-set poliziotteschi with the singularly arresting concept of pairing muscular method-man, Harvey Keitel's brooding Lt. Fred O'Connor, against the preternaturally angsty ex-Pistol, John Lydon, whose blithely bilious, Pil-popping persona is put to lurid good use as the manipulative, morally bankrupt psycho killer, Leo Smith. With shocking bursts of violence, and fevered flourishes of Mamet-like intensity, the misanthropic, 'Order of Death' has more refined cinematic qualities than its current bargain-bin obscurity suggests!

This claustrophobic, enjoyably skewed celluloid oddity is enlivened by maestro, Ennio Morricone's beautiful theme, and the increasingly tormented, Keitel makes for a memorably vexed, psychologically complex cop. While Faenza's jittery psychodrama is flawed, the gritty film's incendiary dynamics are undiminished,'Cop Killer' remains a darkly compelling entry in the by-then waning poliziotteschi movie cycle; and the sweaty, antagonistic interrogation sequences between, Keitel and Lydon still make for compulsive viewing! With modest expectations, Roberto Faenza's dingily exciting 'Cat & Louse' thriller is unlikely to disappoint, and should rate higher with the more obsessive Euro-crime, midnight movie addicts!

'Order Of Death' (aka 'Copkiller') is one of the most interesting movies on Harvey Keitel's early resume. Along with 'Fingers' and 'Blue Collar' it's one of his most underrated performances, and a movie that every Keitel fan should seek out. His character here - a corrupt NYC cop - is almost a practice run for his magnificent 'Bad Lieutenant'. Keitel plays Fred O'Connor a dysfunctional police officer who co-owns a secret luxury bachelor pad with his partner, bought with dirty money. The city is going through a series of cop killings and paranoia is rampant, though O'Connor doesn't really seem all that concerned at first. He becomes a little jumpy when he finds himself being stalked by a mysterious weirdo (John Lydon, yes Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols infamy), and positively freaks out when he turns up on his doorstep claiming to be the cop killer. O'Connor doesn't believe him but is panicked all the same, as his whole secret life is at risk of being revealed, so he does the logical (?) thing - he keeps him prisoner. But this is only the beginning in a film that keeps you guessing, as mind games and battles of will ensue, with some strange identity and relationship swapping, almost worthy of legendary 70s headtrip 'Performance'. This strange film, somewhere between a hard boiled genre crime movie and an art-house puzzler, is flawed but fascinating, and should appeal to fans of Abel Ferrara and Wim Wenders, especially the latters overlooked 'The American Friend'.