Best Seller (1987)

Brian Dennehy plays a cop who becomes a best-selling author by writing about a robbery of several million dollars from a police lock-up where he was the only cop to survive. Ten years on, he's approached by a man (James Woods) professing to be a hitman for a major corporation. A corporation that got its start with money stolen in a daring heist from a police lock-up.

You see, before the Internet was a thing, companies had to actually work to get funding, rather than bilking morons into investing in cryptocurrency.

Woods wants to be the subject of Dennehy's next book, and much of the movie is him trying to convince Dennehy he's telling the truth. Providing him a scrapbook of articles about his various kills, presenting him with a rifle he used for one and kept buried in a vacant lot for years as insurance.

Woods is very convincing as a guy who turns on his charm like a light switch, at one point talking their way into the home of one of his past victims by pretending he grew up there and would just really like to see his childhood bedroom. I mean, he's got to be charming. Would you let James Woods into your house on such a flimsy pretext (or at all)?

He just as easily turns nasty when he doesn't get his way. He seems desperate to impress Dennehy, but on his terms. He only grudgingly takes Dennehy to meet his family in Oregon, and threatens to kill him that night. There's a need for appreciation he didn't get from the corporate bigwig (Paul Shenar) who relied on his dirty work.

Dennehy plays his character with a weary skepticism, but there's a mixture of idealism and self-interest. He's more interested in letting Woods dig a hole by confessing to all these murders, and he rebuffs Woods' attempts to make friends or go along with the notion he's something more than a killer. But he can't deny he's finally writing again, or that he needs the money. Or that he's enjoying digging into what makes someone like this.

It does seem like it's only once the corporate bigwig starts trying to eliminate Dennehy that he really buys into the notion there's something to Woods' story. Like, if they didn't try to blow him up in a cab, or sic a lawyer on Dennehy to threaten not only blocking publication of the book, but making sure he doesn't get his pension, he might have dropped it. The harder they try to warn him off, the more convinced he is there's something there, and while the money may be helpful, he's got enough idealism that money alone can't deter him.

At the same time, I think the argument is Shenar, who has the false ease of a guy disguising his contempt for the people applauding him, knows Woods has or could have enough to actually cause trouble. They can't count on Dennehy losing interest, because if he doesn't, it'll be too late to stop him.

It's a decent thriller overall, throwing in a few brief gunfights to break up Woods trying to get Dennehy to like him, and Dennehy being gruffly resistant.