Crime Drama Detectives
Private Investigators and Former Cops Solve the Cases
In detective movies, the person solving the crime is usually more important to the story than the crime itself.
In director Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Vertigo (1958), Scottie (James Stewart) represents the archetypal movie detective: No longer an official detective, Scottie is a retired cop with a somewhat soiled public reputation and a personal weakness that interferes with his solving the new crime.
Detectives Rely on Logic
The intriguing mystery of a lovely young woman who commits suicide propels the story forward in Vertigo. However, Scottie’s personal dilemmas (he’s obsessively in love with the dead woman, lacks credibility on the police force, and fears his vertigo stopped him from saving the victim) keep the film exciting.
Although in crime dramas, the criminals may be consumed with worry about the consequences of their actions and the criminologists usually fret over the outcome of each minute detail, the detective has no such preoccupation. He merely uses logic and reason to solve the puzzle. Unless he’s Dirty Harry (1973), he works entirely on figuring out the crime and leaves the punishment to the courts. In Scottie’s case, when the pieces refuse to fit together logically, he suffers a mental breakdown. These same characteristics (also found in earlier film noir detectives such as Sam Spade [Humphrey Bogart] in The Maltese Falcon [1941]) still exist in today’s modern movie detectives, whether they are private investigators, former cops, or dabbling detectives from another line of work.
Soiled Public Reputation, Personal Weakness
Despite having a distinct code of honor he upholds, Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) in the thriller Fracture (2007) represents an ambitious young Assistant District Attorney who gets thrown into the crime drama detective role. His 97 percent success rate publicly boasts of his code of honor, yet he privately trades with his co-workers in order to get the easiest open-and-shut cases in order to maintain his record. This strength ultimately becomes his weakness when a deranged killer (Anthony Hopkins) with an alibi chooses to publicly humiliate Willy in order to ruin his near-spotless record. Unless Willy can solve the mystery on his own (and with the help of a few friends in the right places), his reputation is ruined and his impending promotion revoked.
Even comedic detectives share these same qualities of soiled public reputations and personal weaknesses that interfere with their crime-solving methods. In Fletch (1985), newspaper columnist/investigative reporter Irwin Fletcher (Chevy Chase) tries to crack a dangerous drug ring through the use of crazy disguises, rude interviews, and dry one-liners. Even so, Fletch still qualifies as the quintessential detective: Not an official private investigator, he follows his own sense of journalistic integrity, yet walks a fine line between getting fired (for missing deadlines) and getting jailed (by a crooked police chief). Again, these weaknesses work as strengths and vice versa, as Fletch breaks all the rules to bring the guilty to justice. When his editor tells him that he’s fired if he travels to Utah and misses his story deadline, Fletch uses his new-found freedom for traveling to the source of conflict: “The story is Utah,” he tells his boss. His outrageous antics are in direct proportion to the details of the case. When logic fails, Fletch turns to silliness.
Whether a “Kindergarten Cop,” “Time Cop,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” or an unofficial detective from another line of work, detectives haven’t really changed that much over the years. They still use logic and reason to crack the case while simultaneously struggling with soiled public personas and personal problems.
To learn more about crime dramas, read The Bank Job Movie Review.
