The Glass Shield (Charles Burnett, 1994)

How responsible is Harvey Weinstein for butchering The Glass Shield? I must admit, compared to the man's other crimes, this doesn't seem quite as pressing a question as it did 25 years ago, but there's no denying that the film is a bit of a mess. Although there is a slight inconsistency of tone throughout The Glass Shield, the wheels don't really come off the thing until the last 15-20 minutes, when the behavior of Officer John "J.J." Johnson (Michael Boatman) becomes increasingly unhinged in order to drive the plot to some kind of recognizable conclusion. The last couple of scenes, after Johnson is charged, are played so awkwardly as to verge on parody, and the four "where are they now?" chyrons are just bizarre, as if Burnett and crew were making a movie and just decided to stop,

That's Ed, the primary difficulty that runs al through The Glass Shield could very well be the result of a Weinstein-Burnett conflict, although there's no way to know without asking Burnett. It's obvious that "someone" assumed it was supposed to be a fast-and-dirty urban drama in the vein of Boyz n the Hood or Menace II Society. Meanwhile, "someone" was attempting to make an B-level art picture along the lines of Samuel Fuller. This is evident in its use of oblique angles, neon reflections, and above all a murderers' row of character-acting talent (M. Emmet Walsh, Michael Ironside, Bernie Casey, Richard Anderson) and an unexpected supporting turn by Elliott Gould.

Not to over-elasticize the concept of "sympathy for the devil," but it's easy to understand how Weinstein could have gotten the wrong idea. The Rodney King verdict and the L.A. uprisings happened only a year before The Glass Shield went into production, and so a reverse-procedural detailing a Black cop's discovery of rampant racism and corruption inside Daryl Gates' LAPD probably seemed like a populist home-run. But we can assume that The Fat Rapist had never bothered to see Killer of Sheep, or just assumed that he could effectively bully an up-and-coming African-American director. The layers of bigotry are as ironic as they are revolting.

And it's so easy to see what Burnett might've made with more freedom and a slightly larger budget. This early performance by Boatman is stilted and at times unconvincing, and that hurts the film because so much rides on him. At the same time, Fuller's films often make the most of acting that we'd consider "bad" in the usual sense. This is where Lori Petty really shines, since the gravitas and toughness she sorely lacks in her role as Officer Fields emphasizes her inability to fit in to the corrupt culture of the department. She barely fits in the film itself. By contrast, Victoria Dillard, as Johnson's fiancee Barbara, delivers a performance too good for the film. Her discomfort around J.J.'s family is subtle but palpable, as her concerned glances as Fields when J.J. holds her hand in the hospital are priceless -- a textbook example of making the most of a small, thankless role.

It's interesting to see The Glass Shield after watching Steve McQueen's much better (and undoubtedly better funded) Small Axe film Red, White and Blue. McQueen was clearly influenced by Burnett's film, as they share a number of significant narrative beats and interstitial gestures (most notably the strategic visual deployment of the N-word). Red, White and Blue is primarily about racism on the force, and doesn't really delve into corruption. I'm reluctant to ding a film for its ambition, but The Glass Shield introduces more threads than it can reasonably manage, no doubt resulting in that awful conclusion. 

Would this have worked better as a miniseries? Perhaps, but 1994 wasn't 2014, and HBO wasn't throwing out money like Mardi Gras beads back then. Still, Burnett's talent is never not apparent in The Glass Shield. In certain ways he nails that grungy, gutbucket Fuller appeal, as though the filmmaker is using the cinema as an alternate form of muckraking journalism -- sensationalism for the greater good. This would make a fine double-feature with 1997's The Final Insult, which further explores the failed-L.A. ambiance without forcing itself into a genre mold. Maybe that was Burnett's do-over?