GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

DigitalRevenantX7 West German police inspector Frank Glass has been turned into a cynic by his hard luck story of life & career – he refuses to fire a gun ever since he accidentally shot & crippled a young girl during a sting operation; his wife & daughter have left him; his workplace is being renovated to his detriment & he is also on the trail of a serial killer who smears Vaseline on his victims' faces. With the help of his new assistant Shirley May & a prostitute girlfriend named Lisa, Glass attempts to catch the killer when the daughter of a friend is killed in similar fashion. But what he doesn't know is that a local drug pusher has information critical to the case & when the dealer is attacked & put into intensive care, Glass finally puts his plan into motion.Killing Blue (known in some places as Midnight Cop) is one of the most unusual police thrillers I have seen ever since I started writing film reviews. The film was made in West Germany in 1988, a year before the Berlin Wall came down & reunited Germany. Armin Mueller-Stahl plays the main character while Julia Kent, Morgan Fairchild & Michael York round out the supporting cast. In order to understand Killing Blue, you need to look at the context the film is in. The film deliberately goes for the offbeat look, with a police inspector who refuses to fire a gun, who has connections with the underworld & who seems to be hiding behind a wall of cheerful cynicism in order to cope with his own personal life. The film's story is interesting, mainly through small but important background details such as streets filled with underage streetwalkers, violent drug dealers & cops who routinely drink on the job. The murder case Mueller-Stahl is working on is there to give the film a narrative drive although the payoff at the conclusion is a little weak. Also weak is the way Mueller-Stahl resolves his guilt over the little girl's shooting at the end by simply dropping his pistol when the drug dealer he has been chasing gives up.The acting is a tricky one to mark since the cast give a wide range of performances. Armin Mueller-Stahl is excellent as the main character while Julia Kent & Michael York are both adequate (although York is a far cry from his earlier works). On the opposite end of the acting scale, Morgan Fairchild, one of the period's worst actresses, goes through proceedings with a stony face & painfully flat delivery that makes the film drop to functional mediocrity.

classicsoncall I saw this film under the title "Midnight Cop" which may or may not make any more sense than the German title "Killing Blue". Depending on your disposition, a coin toss could decide if you wind up liking this flick or not. The mystery of the multiple murders had possibilities, but got squandered away in a series of convoluted circumstances. Chief among them was an entirely unlikely pairing of police inspector Alex Glass (Armin Mueller-Stahl) with still-in-her-heyday blonde bombshell Morgan Fairchild as a hooker named Lisa. If I had to bet that Fairchild had done nude scenes, I would have put that at the beginning of her career, but here she bares intriguing body parts a couple of years after her 'Falcon Crest' days. Consequently her face and figure adorn cheapo American video sleeves even though she doesn't have as much screen time as Stahl and British actor Michael York who performs the expected twist in the latter part of the story. I'd be hard pressed to recommend this for anything other than it's oddly calibrated casting of Fairchild, York and Sly Stallone's brother Frank in a role that was underutilized, and might have earned him a couple of bonus points for playing the heavy. As for the story, it takes a number of quick jumps back and forth in time that make things confusing, and if that weren't enough, watching the old cop Alex (fifty eight at the time) grab a handful of Fairchild's assets calls for a bit more stomach than one might expect.

Scarecrow-88 Inspector Alex Glass(Armin Mueller-Stahl)is on the trail of a serial killer who leaves Vaseline on the faces of his victims, dumping their bodies in secluded areas. We see in the opening of the film that Glass accidentally shoots a girl as an attempted arrest escalated into a shoot-out with a drug dealer who gets away. Glass also is burdened by an ex-wife who will not let him see or communicate with his daughter. The girl is a cripple and Glass is afraid of confronting her, leaving the little girl gifts as she tries to recuperate from her injuries. Meanwhile, Glass deals with renovations to his dilapidated Berlin precinct, a new associate/partner, Shirley May(Julia Kent) who he pesters for the hell of it, and a nasty drug dealer named Miskowski(an effective Frank Stallone, in a criminally underwritten role)who is the leading suspect in the murder of a murdered girl who seemingly died of an overdose. Glass has a friend and confident, lawyer Michael Karstens(Michael York..not his finest hour, to be honest)whose own sister was found dead, and pregnant in a meat plant freezer. When Karstens' own daughter is found dead the same way as the other victim(..also a ballet friend of hers), Glass will certainly have to fend off his alcoholism and sadness to stop the killing. Another plot development has Glass getting involved with a high-price call girl named Lisa(Morgan Fairchild, fatally miscast and, in my opinion, hurts the film)who has a relationship with drug dealing Mikowski, who is black mailing an important public official which reveals the answers to the film's ultimate mystery as to who is committing the murders.I will admit that this is troublesomely convoluted, as mysteries often are, despite the fact that viewers who are paying attention will recognize who the killer is relatively early. But, Stahl's performance, in my opinion, is a must-see. He adds little touches and quirks to his character(..such as a funny little twitch with his nose, and little bit with a horn mouthpiece when bored during a stake-out of a person he's tailing)and is the kind of actor who adds dimension to a his detective which makes him interesting and believable. Stahl could've phoned it in, but he really makes the most of this part. Despite his flaws, Stahl is incredibly likable and vulnerable. When he's betrayed by someone in the plot, and is duped during the investigation, Stahl handles this perfectly. He's not a carciature whose detective knows every move of his quarry and has all the aces up his sleeve..I like this myself and was happy that he doesn't make all the right decisions. Yet, Stahl's character doesn't remain in a sulking state, and he isn't some cranky, angry sort always barking at people as is typical by boozing, down-on-their-luck detectives always seem in these type of films. I also thought the film was evocatively photographed in a moody neo-noir style capturing an effective Berlin where teenage prostitution, buildings in ruin, drug-abuse & sordid types all bathe the city streets where our Inspector works. Sometimes the score can be a liability, especially when the music hammers in certain scenes, but there's some jazz that I think added a nice little touch to the proceedings. I didn't care for the ending..a bit strange where the climax has the killer cornered in a meat plant where Stahl's detective sets up a dangerous scenario which could've been handled with a bit more finesse and an all too quaint close where Glass can appropriately exorcise that massive demon that's been plaguing him. But, worst of all, is having us buy into the relationship between Glass and Lisa. To be honest, Glass has better chemistry with his partner, Shirley..this would've been a more ideal pairing and they have a wonderful scene where they're caught in an uncompromising position thanks to a clumsy misstep when tailing Lisa hoping to catch up with Miskowski.

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Just too hard to follow with too many sub-plots makes "Killing Blue" fall apart long before the movies unsurprising conclusion. That's about as exciting as an attack of insomnia. Berlin homicide inspector Alex Glass is having a bad time with his conscience after he mistakenly shot and injured a little girl in a blotched attempt to arrest a fugitive in a Berlin apartment house. Upset with himself and his work Glass starts to drink and goes into a deep depression over his actions that crippled the girl for life. Glass secretly buys her gifts and presents to make up for what he mistakenly did to her. Even his new assistant Shirley May notices Glass' ugly demeanor with him treating her worse the the criminals that he deals with every day. It's then that something happens that changes Glass' attitude when he becomes involved with the drug death of Ennis Warner. That leads right to Berlin District Attorney Michael Karstens doorstep who's daughter Monica was Ennis' best friend. Being very close to Karstens as both a friend of the lawman Glass took a personal interest in Ennis's death. Finding that Ennis was a street hooker and druggie Glass tracked down her supplier lover and possibly murderer a small-time thug named Jack Miskowski. It turns out that Miskowski was with Ennis the night that she overdosed.The movie then takes a left-turn when high-priced hooker Lisa comes on the scene and Glass, after saving her from a over demanding customer, starts getting it on with her. Only to later find out, from a photo in Lisa's hotel room, that she and Miskowski are lovers as well as being involved in his drug and prostitution racket. It also comes to both Glass and Karsten' attention that Karstens' teenage daughter Monica is a junkie and is also getting her drugs from Miskowski just like her late friend Ennis did. Michael in trying to get Monica away from Miskowski's clutches tries to stop her from meeting him but loses track of her only to find Monica the next day at a construction site strangled to death. Miskowski now Monica's suspected killer gets away from Glass and the Berlin police in a sting operation they set up for him. It's then when the movie really turns upside down with Michael secretly meeting with Miskowski at an empty train station. With what at first looks like an exchange is about to be made between the two Miskowski gets a knife in his gut killing him with Michael taking off with a briefcase that the drug dealer had on him. In his car Michael finds out that he was doubled-crossed by the conning Miskowski but it's now too late for him to make things right for himself. Since Miskowski is no longer around to tell him where the "real deal" really is. Murder blackmail and a major plot twist are the main ingredients to this convoluted police crime drama. That has the victim change into the real villain in the film as we see that he's not the goody goody two shoes that we thought that he was a the start of the movie. Michael Karstens had very serious mental and emotional problems that he acted out some time ago and Miskowski somehow got a hold of a number of photos, or took them himself,that he was blackmailing him with. It also came out, unknowingly at the time to the audience,that Monica also knew about her step-father's secret life that in the end lead to her murder.It was Inspector Glass who had an idea of what was the real reason for Miskowski's death. By him keeping it from the public is what brought Michael out in the open and thus expose his reasons for not only killing Miskowski but the real and unnerving reason to why he did it.