Cop Land is a television mini-series populated by feature film stars and crammed into a theatrical running time. This movie has so much going on that it has absolutely no hope of fitting it all into its less than 2-hour running time.

The title of the film refers to the small town of Garrison, New Jersey, a community just outside of the crime infested streets of Manhatten. Garrison is the home to a rather large population of New York City police officers, who, as the film explains, have bypassed an ordinance preventing them from living outside the state by taking part-time jobs as transit cops. The ringleader of this group of cops, "Uncle" Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel) has connections to the mafia and has used them to secure inexpensive housing for all of his cop buddies.

Garrison's sheriff department is run by Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone), who has always wanted to be a cop. We learn that as a teenager, Heflin rescued a young girl from drowning, but in doing so he went deaf in one ear. This handicap prevents him from being a New York City cop. By becoming the sheriff of Garrison, Heflin is able to live vicariously through the "real" police officers. In turn, the NYPD residents treat Heflin with the condescending attitude one might reserve for the little brother who won't stop following you around.

This is all just background. The main story involves a young cop, Murray "Superboy" Babitch (Michael Rapaport), who is involved in the murder of two black men. It is presumed that rather than see his reputation tarnished, Babitch jumped to his death from the Gearge Washinton bridge. In reality, Uncle Ray has smuggled Babitch away from the scene of the crime.

Internal Affairs investigator Moe Tilden (Robert DeNiro) suspects that Babitch is still alive, and probably being hidden in Garrison, but since the town is outside of his jurisdiction, he tries to enlist Heflin's help, appealing to Heflin's desire to be a "real" cop.

Had Cop Land stopped there, and developed its story just around this situation and these characters, it might have been a great, tight thriller. However, this is only scratching the surface of the stories the film wants to tell. There is another corrupt cop, Gary Figgis (Ray Liotta), who appears to be one of Freddy Heflin's only friends. And then there's Liz (Annabella Sciorra), the girl that Heflin rescued as a teenager. Liz is now married to one of Garrison's NYPD residents and in an abusive relationship, because her husband is cheating on her with Uncle Ray's wife.

There's more, but already it's sounding a little too much like a soap opera. It's not that all of these stories aren't interesting. It's just that they are a little too much for a 2-hour movie. This material really wants a 2 or 3 night mini-series to fully explore all of the story threads. But because everything is trimmed so short, there just doesn't seem to be any sort of satisfying conclusion to anything.

Cop Land is a little like taking too many really great ingredients and throwing them all into one soup.