The Onion Field

In Los Angeles in 1963, two plainclothes officers make a routine traffic stop. The two men they pull over draw guns, abduct them and drive them to an onion field outside the city. One officer is killed, the other escapes. The film is about what comes after: the surviving officer's collapse and years of litigation. The subject is not the murder but the aftermath. Karl Hettinger is not charged, but everyone asks him how he got away; the department turns him into a training example and he starts shoplifting. The case, meanwhile, will not end because of appeals, and the legal system becomes a torture of its own. The form is cold and documentary in tone; little music, events given in order and without comment. The source is Joseph Wambaugh's book of the same name. Wambaugh was a former Los Angeles policeman and wrote it from the record; he also wrote the screenplay and, after his experience with earlier adaptations, had the film made independently with his own money. Harold Becker directs. John Savage plays Hettinger and James Woods plays Gregory Powell, one of the attackers; his work here is regarded as the turning point of his career. Who it is for: viewers interested in true crime and the workings of the courts. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a fast police thriller; the second half is almost entirely trial and breakdown.