Rent-a-Cop

Rent-a-Cop (1987)

Deadlier than Dirty Harry, faster than Cobra

Detective Tony Church is forced to retire and become a store rent-a-cop when his drug sting operation comes to a tragic end by a masked killer. He joins forces with a prostitute, the only one able to identify the killer, to bring him to justice.

Date of release
1987-11-28
TMDB
4.7 / 10 (48)
Runtime
1h 32m
Genres
Comedy, Crime, Action
Director
Jerry London

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 2. Including: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress

Rent-a-Cop is a 1987 American thriller comedy starring Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli. Reynolds plays Tony Church, a disgraced police officer working as a security guard, who falls in love with Della Roberts (Minnelli), a prostitute.

Production

Although filming was to have begun in October 1986, it was pushed back to November.Rent-a-Cop was the feature film debut of director Jerry London, who had made his name through his work on television mini series such as Shogun. Burt Reynolds was paid $3 million for his role in the film. "His last couple of pictures were dark movies," said director Jerry London. "Audiences didn't come out of theaters with that warm glow Burt can give.

Rent-a-Cop was Liza Minnelli's first film in five years. She had been admitted to the Betty Ford Clinic in 1984 for substance abuse problems. "Everybody I know, including myself, gets into trouble," she said. "When you dole out too much credit to public opinion, when your sense of self gets blurry, when you feel that what people think is more important than how you feel . . .

"The cop and the hooker story has been done a million times," said Reynolds. "The secret to doing the story is always the cop that hates the girl and the girl that hates the cop, but they need each other for whatever reason." Reynolds said he and Minnelli "like each other enormously, and that's kind of the subtext of what we are doing.

Location filming took place in Chicago. Studio work was done in Rome. "He is an intelligent, sharp and hard-working professional," said London about Reynolds, "and the chemistry between him and Minnelli is wonderful. I think Rent-A-Cop is an audience picture, the kind of film where you have a good time for an hour and 40 minutes. It is just what Burt and his audience need."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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