Ben Stiller To Direct THE SEVEN FIVE Which is Based on a Doc About Crooked Cops
Ben Stiller is in talks to direct a new film project titled The Seven Five, which is based on a 2014 documentary of the same name, which centered around a corrupt NYPD precinct in the 1980s.
The crooked cop ring was led by Michael Dowd, who is said to be the “dirtiest cop in NYC history”. He was arrested in 1992 along with several other dirty cops who were stealing money and drugs. He ended up serving 14 years in prison, and it was his arrest that exposed widespread corruption within the New York police force.
The report goes on to say that Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Nicholas Hoult have been in the running to take on the role of Dowd. No one is attached to star in the film yet, but maybe one of them will end up in the role. Both are solid actors who would be great in the role.
Here’s a more detailed rundown of the story and the people involved:
In the 1980s, Brooklyn, New York was suffering from a crack epidemic. Michael Dowd worked in the NYPD's 75th Precinct in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, which was considered to be one of the most dangerous precincts in the United States at the time. The 75th Precinct had one of the highest murder rates in the country during the late 1980s. Dowd describes being under-appreciated for the amount of work he put in and hurting for money as the reasons for taking money from drug dealers. He initially began taking bribes from drug dealers on the streets before moving on to protecting a drug cartel leader and robbing other drug dealers at gunpoint. Dowd and his then-partner Henry "Chicky" Guevara recount the first time walking into a domestic dispute in an apartment and seeing bags of marijuana, a duffle bag filled with approximately $20,000 in cash and two guns. Dowd communicated that he and his partner would take $8000 from the duffle bag and both guns. Dowd continued to rob drug dealers for thousands of dollars. Guevara resigned shortly after multiple police officers were arrested in the 77th Precinct for corruption related offenses.
Ken Eurell, a police officer at the 75th Precinct, was then assigned as Dowd's new partner in June 1987. Eurell had a drinking problem and frequently drank on the job. Dowd and Eurell met a Dominican gang leader named Adam Diaz. Diaz ran The Diaz Organization, a gang that was responsible for countless murders and drug trafficking throughout New York City. He used several supermarkets in East New York as fronts to traffic drugs, mainly cocaine. Dowd and Eurell began a working relationship with Diaz, where they provided protection and inside information about raids.
After a prolonged investigation, the Suffolk County Police Department arrested Dowd and Eurell on drug trafficking charges (in addition to their work for Diaz in the city, the men had begun distributing cocaine through a friend who lived in the county). Dowd and Eurell were released on bail. While out on bail, Dowd was approached by a friend in a Colombian gang who wanted a woman kidnapped over an unpaid drug debt. Dowd's plan was to hand the woman over to the gang and for him and Eurell to take the hundreds of thousands of dollars at the woman's house and flee the United States. Eurell agreed to Dowd's kidnapping scheme but instead of following through with the scheme contacted Internal Affairs through his lawyer. Shortly after, in July 1991, Dowd was arrested and sent to trial. He was the main focus of the 1992 Mollen Commission that investigated police corruption in the NYPD. In the wake of Dowd's arrest, Mayor David Dinkins appointed the Mollen Commission to investigate police corruption within the NYPD. As a result, dozens of officers across the city's precincts were arrested.
You can watch the trailer for the documentary that the movie will be based on below. It’ll be interesting to see what Stiller does with this story if he ends up directing it.
Source: Collider