SYNOPSICS
I Love a Man in Uniform (1993) is a English movie. David Wellington has directed this movie. Tom McCamus,Brigitte Bako,Kevin Tighe,David Hemblen are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1993. I Love a Man in Uniform (1993) is considered one of the best Drama,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
Henry Adler lives in Ontario by himself, regularly visits his gruff and critical father, and works in a bank; he's also an actor. He finds new purpose in life when he's cast as a cop in a realistic TV show. He gets into the part, borrowing the uniform from wardrobe, and walking around the city streets. Soon he's talking to bank customers as if he's a cop; this gets him in trouble with his boss, but Henry doesn't care. He falls for one of the actresses, Charlie, and they practice together. Henry's quirks and his intensity creep her out, though, and she breaks off all contact. He's desolate. Things come to a head when one of LA's finest mistakes Henry for a real cop.
I Love a Man in Uniform (1993) Reviews
"Got a black Uniform and a silver badge...playing cops for real or playing cops for pay?"
This was an excellent film. The central performance by Tom McManus is very tightly controlled and well-developed. With its premise of a mild mannered man suddenly going on a violent power trip,I was expecting something more over-the-top and lurid,something closer to "Taxi Driver" or "God's Lonely Man",but"Man in Uniform" is actually under-played and, with the exception of a few scenes involving Kevin Tighe near the end, rather low-key. The protagonist at first seems like a typical well-behaved non-entity but Tom McManus, aided by David Wellington's excellent screenplay and direction, invests him with an alienated sense of sadness that I found somewhat touching. This is a film worth seeking out.
Disturbing
This is a very different movie that isn't easy to find on either VHS or DVD. I know it as "Man In Uniform" and, unfortunately, got rid of my tape after seeing this a few times. Now I regret it because I'd like to see it again. "Disturbing" is a word most often used to describe this story. A mentally- disturbed small-time actor gets a role in a show in which he plays a cop. He begins to think that is really is a policeman and begins to impersonate one out in the streets. This is a Grade-B type production with actors that may not be familiar outside of Canada, but it gets by. Tom McCamus plays the main role as "Henry Adler." Brigitt Bako is interesting in here, too. If you can find this movie and enjoy stories about wacked-out people, grab it.
Bizarre, Absorbing, Disturbing (Spoilers)
Canadian films often tend towards the offbeat or downright bizarre. This fine contribution to that tradition offers us a portrayal of a weak personality trying to feed off a strong one. Henry Adler, an insignificant bank clerk who is also a trained actor, wins a part on a cop show as Flanagan, a strong, macho policeman who is loved by a prostitute in the show. Henry tries to draw on his character's strength by wearing his police uniform/costume in real life. Does his ploy work? I won't give that away here, but watching the situation develop is a real treat. Tom McCamus turns in a masterly performance, ably supported by Brigitte Bako as an actress in the show and David Hemblen as his exasperating father. The agreeably weird music by The Tragically Hip helps too. Rating: 8/10 - a movie of lasting impact, right from the startling initial sequence.
Incredible film in the "Taxi Driver" vein...
Amazing that this was written and directed by the guy who gave us the godawful "Zombie Nightmare." It only goes to show that you CAN improve (although anything would be an improvement from that film). "A Man in Uniform" (the U.S. title, at least) is an incredibly well made film focusing on bank employee Henry Adler who is also trying to make it as an actor. The opening shot of a police officer getting blown away is amazing. It also serves to show how Adler (well-played by McCamus), gets the inspiration necessary for his audition as a cop on a "Hill Street Blues" type of police drama. Adler's personality is so vacant that when he asks to borrow the police officer's outfit so that he can "stay in character" he slowly becomes the cop he's portraying. A chilling urban psychodrama that deserves to be on the list with such films as "Taxi Driver", "Falling Down" and "Death Wish". 9/10.
A Disturbing Tale of Psychological Breakdown
Slick and stylish, Canadian director Wellington's first feature is a tight, mostly unpredictable tale of urban degeneration and psychological breakdown, with a realistic, ominous atmosphere of foreboding throughout. Creating an incredibly human anti-hero, lead actor Tom MacCamus gives an appropriately nervy portrayal of Henry Adler, a fledgling method actor (and bank employee) who lands his first big role as a policeman on a tabloid-TV cop show, only to gradually go off the deep end. He starts mistaking his role with reality when a series of shattering events of urban violence and personal frustrations lead him to the edge of sanity. In the opening scenes, he witnesses a real cop get shot through the stomach on a downtown Toronto street corner in broad daylight. A brutal bank robbery occurs in the branch where he is vault manager. Initially attracted to him, his co-star on the show, Charlie (Brigitte Bako) shuns him when she senses his confused obsessiveness and moral perplexity. His cold and callous father (David Hemblen) dies of a stroke. All of these happenings conspire to make him don his cop outfit, and walk the streets, soaking up the urgent power the uniform provides him. He is so convincing, everyone takes him for a bona fide fuzz. He takes the law into his own hands and encounters the corrupt realist cop Frank (noted Seattle character actor Kevin Tighe) who speeds Henry's descent into a personal hell by showing him the seamy, amoral side of police work, on a tension-filled night journey. Chilling and mordant, the film has few false notes, and is tragedy in the best Aristotelian traditions.