Here’s a brisk true-crime story from 1980s New York. It details the police corruption at Brooklyn’s 75th precinct, particularly the behaviour of Mike Dowd, an officer whose practices eventually saw him emblazoned on the cover of the New York Post as Dirtiest Cop Ever. Dowd himself appears, confessing his misdeeds in much the same tone of cheerful “ain’t-I-a-stinker?” chutzpah as Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s like a real-life version of a vintage Sidney Lumet movie, involving fast money, NYPD omertà, a Dominican drug gang named La Compania, and interviews with assorted cops and ex-cops who look as if they’re being played by J K Simmons and Joe Pantoliano. The talking heads approach gets a bit relentless, but it’s hair-raising stuff.
