The cinema had already been relying on the work of the police since long before the premiere of 'Dirty Harry', but its popularity increased after the premiere of the Don Siegel film starring Clint Eastwood. Real cases were even used in titles such as 'French Connection: Against the Drug Empire' or 'Serpico' to finish establishing the image of the policeman as a hero and role model.
However, it was during the 80s when everything changed thanks to titles such as 'Super Detective in Hollywood', 'Lethal Weapon' or 'Die Hard', all of which became the start of lucrative franchises. The real kick-off came with the first, film released in 1984 with the best income at the box office in the United States. Only in that country, it entered 234 million dollars.
That same year, "Crazy Police Academy" had also triumphed and other titles such as "Cobra, the strong arm of the law" were not long in coming to gradually establish the predominant figure of the police officer in the action genre. Already in 1987 the sequel starring Eddie Murphy once again led the box office, but the first installment of 'Lethal Weapon' also arrived and the release of a film like 'The Untouchables of Eliot Ness' did not hurt either.
Titles like 'Danko: Red Heat' or 'Tango and Cash continued to promote the figure of the policeman at the end of the 80s, but it is that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone also showed a more sympathetic side of law enforcement officers shortly after in ' Kindergarten Cop' and 'Stop! Or my mother shoots', without forgetting those fun hybrids that were 'Demolition Man' and 'Last Action Hero' in 1993.
It is true that the new installments of those already mentioned franchises continued to be the main drivers, but Hollywood continued to occasionally resort to extolling the figure of the police officer as the person who could deal with terrorist threats in films like 'Passenger 57' or, above all, 'Speed: Maximum power' -although in this last case the villain was precisely an ex-policeman who was an expert in explosives-. Even Harrison Ford jumped on the bandwagon becoming CIA agent Jack Ryan in 'Patriot Games' and 'Imminent Danger'.
Everything was going smoothly, but we can say without fear of being wrong that the last great year of the policeman in Hollywood action movies was 1995. That year came 'Die Hard: Revenge', but also 'Two rebel cops'. Also, it is true that 'Judge Dredd' failed, but the studio had shown great confidence in it and they could have simply taken note that times were changing and the public seemed to show more interest in somewhat darker proposals as was the case. 'Seven'.
It didn't work the same anymore
The problem Hollywood was facing then was that Murphy's popularity as an action hero had been damaged after the failure of 'Super Detective in Hollywood III', something that would be confirmed in 1997 with the failure of 'The Negotiator'. In addition, Schwarzenegger and Stallone were also beginning to falter. The first would still score a goal in 1996 with 'Eraser (Eliminator)' -three years later he would be an ex-policeman again in 'The End of Days', but there he had to face a supernatural threat and the tape also failed in the United States- and the second got back into the skin of a policeman in 'Cop Land', but away from the action and more to criticize the existing corruption in the body than anything else.
For his part, Willis began to diversify his career a little more and the film in which he returned to play a law enforcement officer, specifically a member of the FBI, was the resounding box office flop 'Mercury Rising (Red Hot). '. It is true that he still scored several box office hits with 'The Fifth Element', 'Jackal' -where he was the villain and the hero played by Richard Gere, a former terrorist- or, above all, 'Armageddon', but it is already He noticed that he did not want to be pigeonholed and by the end of the 90s he began with 'The Sixth Sense' a stage in what was closest to an action movie he made was the funny 'False Appearances'.
The rest of Hollywood's leading heroes in the early 90s, such as Jean-Claude Van Damme, Wesley Snipes or Steven Seagal, also saw their popularity wane, although it is fair to admit that the latter knew how to handle it a little better initially thanks to the success of ' Blade', where it was already closer to superhero movies than anything else.
It was then that two actors emerged in Hollywood as great action heroes. On the one hand, Will Smith, who had his first great opportunity in the cinema giving life to a policeman in the aforementioned 'The Bad Boys' and who continued to flirt with being a law enforcement officer first in 'Men in Black' -although there his curiously, the character transitioned from being a policeman to a position closer to that of a spy- and later in a different way in 'Wild Wild West'.
He did continue to intermittently cultivate the figure of the policeman at the beginning of the century, especially after the sequels to his greatest hits, but the public no longer responded in the same way and both 'Men in Black' and 'Two rebel cops' took a turn for the worse. long rest before returning.
