Are we Human, or are we Dancer?
Directed by Jerry London
Starring Burt Reynolds, Liza Minnelli, James Remar
Released January 15th, 1988
Rated R
Knocking on the wrong hotel room door can lead to a series of unintended, dangerous misadventures. Especially if guns, money, and cocaine are behind that hotel door. Talkative happy hooker Della Roberts (Liza Minnelli) finds this to be the case when she thinks she is about to meet a client but winds up in the middle of a drug bust. The police are there to apprehend drug runners, but a mysterious man wearing a motorcycle helmet shows up and shoots all of the officers, except for Chicago cop Tony Church (Burt Reynolds) who manages to protect Della and ensure their escape.
His fellow officers dead and their killer on the loose, Church takes the blame for the bust gone bad and is relieved of his duties. Out of a job, Church spends his nights walking around the city smiling wistfully at couples in love and returning to his lonely life in his Chicago apartment. A few months later he’s working security at Carson’s Department Store for the Christmas season. Della shows up and demands that Churchy find the motorcycle-helmeted man, saying he is still trying to kill her. She says she will pay him for his protection. And so, Churchy begrudgingly becomes Della’s rent-a-cop.
Though the movie desperately wishes it was, the bickering between Della and Churchy is not endearing. Reynolds plays Churchy straight, doing his best to add some character to a thin script. Minnelli is all wide-eyed and wigs, a fast talker sporting a fashion sense that everyone’s aunt had in the late 1980s. Violent and crazy, James Remar’s helmeted gunman known as “Dancer” is your standard 1980’s action villain. Except for his moniker, of course. A gunman wearing a motorcycle helmet makes for an odd image, but I suppose it makes sense as a makeshift way to obscure identity.
A then-unknown Michael Rooker can be spotted in the opening scene, and Dionne Warwick pops up playing Della’s madam. Jerry Goldsmith’s score is solid, proving that no matter the project, he never phoned it in. Even a project that makes no effort to obscure the mystery of who was behind the failed drug bust. No mystery means no suspense, so we are left with characters going through the motions until the end credits.
The Kino Lorber Studio Classics high-definition remaster is decent, but the film never looks much better than your average made-for-television movie. Special features on the disc include trailers for many films starring Burt Reynolds, and an audio commentary from late film critic Lee Gambin and actor Richard Masur, who plays Roger, one of the film’s crooked cops. Rent-A-Cop doesn’t fare too well with action, comedy, or romance, but perhaps it’s enough of a diversion to entertain your grandmother on a rainy day.