Critic Was Wrong!
In "New York" magazine, David Denby criticized that the audience never gets a look at the killer until the grand finale. Technically, this is untrue: You can spot him watching Hopkins who's staking out that post office.
shareThe trouble with Denby and similar critics who made the same point is that they want everything laid out in typical Hollywood drama fashion. Any thriller you see you'll always get to know who the killer is either directly or indirectly. Its just a question of who?
That's the kind of drama Denby and his ilk prefer: the predictable,
In real life murders the murderer could be some totally random stranger or some very distant friend or colleague who just shows up one night, kills his victim and disappears.
This is what Cop is all about; it doesn't follow the same path as other standard thrillers. The director uses his intelligence and goes for something a little unorthodox, yet the critics didn't like it because it didn't follow their expectations.
In anycase this film is more about Woods the character than the actual murderer, which is another point Denby fails to take on board