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Dennis Lim
Saturday 06 June 1998 23:02 BST
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Cop Land (15). James Mangold's pseudo-indie is most notable for its heavyweight (and, in some cases, conspicuously overweight) cast. A bloated Sylvester Stallone plays Freddy Heflin, a slow-witted New Jersey sherriff who's deaf in one ear (because, like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, he once jumped into a river to save someone's life).

Freddy's town is home to a disproportionate number of corrupt NYPD officers - among them, Ray Liotta and Harvey Keitel, both overacting horribly. Of the big names, only Robert De Niro survives. Mangold's only previous film, the ponderous diner drama Heavy, seems a masterpiece by comparison. His direction here is at once self-important and faceless, but it's his script, full of clumsy, interminable speeches, that truly makes this an ordeal.

One Night Stand (18). Mike Figgis follows Leaving Las Vegas with this muddled tale of obsession and infidelity. It's tempting to blame Joe Eszterhas, author of the original screenplay, but Figgis, who (understandably) overhauled Eszterhas's script, is credited as the writer of this disappointingly trite film. On business in New York, an LA advertising executive (Wesley Snipes) hooks up with a mysterious blonde (Nastassja Kinski); when he returns home, both his wife (Ming Na-Wen, in a sharp comic performance) and the family dog grow suspicious.

Even when Figgis pretends to probe complex adult emotions, the film and its characters are naggingly superficial. Indeed, the irritating, stunningly vapid denouement confirms that there's precious little beneath the surface.

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