Police have always had a peculiar place in cinema history. For the most part, they are the good guys. Always standing on the right side of the law and willing to catch the bad guy at all costs (think Robocop, Serpico, Rush Hour). Yet some of the most interesting portrayals of police in film are that of rogue individuals who can't help but register their own brand of law enforcement (Dirty Harry, Die Hard, Bad Boys). There is also the undercover cop who develops a type of Stockholm syndrome, favouring the criminals they have infiltrated, causing an emotional schism to develops within their psyche (The Departed, Donnie Brasco, Reservoir Dogs).
But in the modern landscape of cinema, the police aren't exactly the most prominent heroes up on the big screen. That role has now been filled by superheroes, leaving cops in some sort of uncomfortable void. Not only that, but in the real world anti-cop sentiment is on the increase, mostly thanks to the numerous high profile killings and shootings of black men by officers that keep happening. Therefore, given the amount of controversies surrounding them, could police become a go-to villains in film and television, like Communists and Arab terrorists have been in the past? To an extent, yes, and it has already begun to happen.