“Write what you know”, advice given to aspiring writers, has its film making equivalent in “Direct what you know”. At least that is the impression given by Andrew Davis, American director whose most successful films had plot set in his native Chicago. First of such films was Code of Silence, 1985 action thriller starring Chuck Norris.
In this film Norris plays Sergeant Eddie Cusack, one of the rare Chicago Police Department officers who actually tries to do the right thing and with the even rarer ability to succeed in it. At the beginning, however, things don’t go well. A complicated sting operation directed against Camachos, Columbian cocaine smuggling ring, gets wrecked when their headquarters is suddenly attacked by gang led by Italian Mafia member Tony Luna (played by Mike Genovese) that manage to steal drugs and money. In the ensuing mayhem, alcoholic Detective Craigie (played by Ralph Foody) accidentally shoots and kills innocent teenager and later covers it up by planting a gun in boy’s hand, much to the disgust of his young partner Nick Kopalas (played by Joe Guzaldo). Cusack and Kopalas are partnered after the fiasco, and Kopalas admits that lacks courage to testify against Craigie, knowing that any policeman who testifies against the others breaks unwritten rule and can expect nothing by shunning by his colleagues. Cusack, however, has much more pressing matter, knowing that Colombian drug lord Luis Comacho (played by Henry Silva) is sworn to revenge and that it could result in vicious gang war and even more blood on the streets. He tries to protect Diana Luna (played by Molly Hagan), an artist and Luna’s daughter whom Comacho’s goons tries to abduct in order to lure her father from hiding.
Legend of Chuck Norris was built in 1980s and one of the foundations was Code of Silence, which is often viewed as the best film of Norris’ career. It not only became great box office hit, but also won usually hostile critics. One of the great reasons for that is script by Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack and Mike Gray, originally developed for Dirty Harry series. It very ingeniously mixed the motive of gang war with motive of police corruption by having the protagonist deal with “Omerta”, the code of silence of Italian American Mafia (which is actually mentioned by one of the characters, old Mafia leader played by Nathan Davis) together with code of silence of fellow policemen. Director Davis handles this script very well, but even better is his work with Norris. Knowing that Norris is not very skilful actor, he compensates that by utilising his other abilities, and the film features some impressive displays of martial arts as well as impressive stunt work done by Norris himself. In the scenes when Norris has to show emotion, he does so adequately, and his character, like Eastwood’s Dirty Harry, doesn’t talk much and instead lets his action do the talking.
Even better is Davis’ clever use of Chicago’s locations as well as local acting talent, which included real life members of Chicago Police Department. The most recognisable among them is Dennis Farina, who would very soon become one of the best character actors in Hollywood. Other members of the cast also excel, especially Henry Silva as formdidable villain and young Molly Hagan whose charm manages to overcome the cliches of damsel in distress. Not everything is perfect in Code of Silence. At the beginning, Davis, obviously in love with his native cities, their citizens and their way of speech, takes almost documentary approach and it takes time before the plot actually gets going and the audience figure out what is going on. Davis tries to make Code of Silence as realistic as possible and in the end he is faced with serious problem when script demands that Norris’ character, described as “one man army”, single-handedly takes out hordes of enemies. Solution comes in the form of futuristic remotely controlled armoured vehicle armed with missiles and heavy machine guns which provides pyrotechnic spectacle, but, at the same time looks like it belong to another film, something more like RoboCop. Although this makes Code of Silence ultimately look sillier than it should have been, this triumph of Chuck Norris at his prime is a film that should be recommended even to viewers who aren’t his fans.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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