Third World Cop (1999)

After committing what we in the biz call “murder” on an already disarmed suspect, a Jamaican cop going by the not exactly trustworthy sounding nickname of Capone (Paul Campbell) – though to be fair he’s really more acting as if he was called “Django” or “Dirty Harry” – is transferred back to a place where his “shoot first, shoot second, then shoot again” approach to policing will be more appreciated. Back to his home city of Kingston it is.

Before Capone has even had the possibility to visit his old haunts properly and reintroduce himself to old friends from the time when he was running with low level gangs like everybody else he knew, he stumbles unto parts of a large gun smuggling operation. It’s not really clear what local gang boss One Hand (Carl Bradshaw) needs quite as many guns for as he is smuggling in but it obviously can’t be anything good.

Most troubling for Capone will be that his closest friend from way back when – we’re basically talking brothers here –, a guy with the unfortunate moniker of Ratty (Mark Danvers), is not just working for One Hand but may be as deeply involved in the gun smuggling operations as possible.

As you may or may not know, Jamaica doesn’t have much of a film industry of its own, so every film that’s made there, independent of style and genre, will have to struggle through a lack of infrastructure, experienced crews and money. In this context, it makes sense that Chris Browne’s crime action movie Third World Cop was shot on digital at a time when that still wasn’t usual. Cheap digital photography at the end of the last century did tend to look rather ugly, unfortunately, so there’s really not much good to say about the film’s basic look. It is, however, staged and blocked well, and certainly enhanced through editing that makes the best of what’s there.

The action sequences are usually not terribly well realized either. There are many shots of people either crouching behind something and shooting or standing and shooting, with comparatively little actual movement that would make these scenes dynamic. The editing picks up quite a bit of the slack here, but still, if that were all the film had to offer, I’d probably say something patronizing about it making the best out of what it has to work with, and leave the movie be.

However, once the film has introduced its hero and his pretty cartoonish cohorts (like his comedy colleague who only ever hides and calls for reinforcements) and enemies, it actually starts doing interesting things with them. I suspect a certain inspiration by Hong Kong cinema, but in any case, Third World Cop turns into a – pleasantly melodramatic – tale of male friendship complicated and betrayed that simply works on an emotional level and even has something to say about poverty. Capone and Ratty’s relationship actually starts to feel true, and certainly emotionally engaging. Browne builds them up as believable friends who parted ways some time ago, and still feel close but only half still know each other. They are also mirror images. One can’t help but think that Capone is quite as desperate as he is to save Ratty because he realized the only difference between Ratty and himself is that he managed to get away from Kingston and street life and found an opportunity to change (a little, he’s still a cowboy cop), while Ratty stayed behind and never found any other way to deal with the poverty and violence dominating his surroundings. If Capone hadn’t left Kingston, he might very well be the one working for One Hand.

Where the digital set up the film has to work with doesn’t work out terribly great for the action scenes, its documentarian, unadorned eye does wonders when it comes to portray Kingston – not the parts of town where you’d meet any tourists, mind you, but those where actual people live harsh lives. Most, if not all of the exterior shots look as if they were made guerrilla style (or Browne is absurdly brilliant at making them look that way), so there’s a very direct sense of place to the film that gives its tale of gangsters and cops a feeling of veracity a comparable Hollywood production wouldn’t be able to reach. I wouldn’t exactly call it authenticity - there are still filmmakers making very conscious artistic and commercial decisions here, after all – but it certainly tries to come close to the actual spirit of its place.


For the music fans among us, it’s also rather nice to have a film featuring various Jamaican musicians (for example Ninja Man and Elephant Man) in smaller roles and with a soundtrack that’s produced by Sly & Robbie.