Order of Death

The acting is very good in this study of police corruption. It stars Harvey Keitel as a bad cop who has taken a great deal of money, and, with a partner, purchased a condo. When the relationship gets strained and the other guy wants out, Keitel becomes a bit paranoid, knowing that such a move could expose them to authorities. Meanwhile, there have been a series of cop killings in the city. Keitel finds himself being stalked by a young man, played by Sex Pistol, Johnny Rotten (Lydon). He has something up his sleeve, although he spends much of his time in a bathtub, wearing almost nothing, handcuffed. The former partner becomes a problems and an act takes place where there is no returning to normalcy. The young man continues to be tortured, but, at the same time, seems to be in control of things. He becomes almost wifely in a way. He pushes Keitel's tortured conscience to the very edge. The acting is very good, especially Lydon. The scenes are really brutal. It's a movie that makes you want to wash afterward. Still, it's pretty captivating and well done.

This is a great subtext movie. There's the surface thriller elements and then there's Harvey Keitel's rough-play with John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten. The pair play out the master/slave dynamic with nasty commitment. Its not merely S&M however, its positively psychopathic in a nasty but sickly playful sense. Its a dark little vision of police power abused and quite probably all too real for some viewers and protestors out there who realise the strong arm of the law isn't disembodied from the bodies of individual policeman despite political rhetoric to the contrary. But hey, this isn't all that serious a movie. Keitel is great, Lydon is a vicious victim and it all goes by relatively quickly. John Lydon is worth the price of admission/rental/purchase alone. Enjoyably twisted.

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.

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.

'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'.