Critic Bryo succinctly summarizes the plot: "Film shows a night at a Manhattan police station and then details how three of the detectives spend the remaining evening hours following completion of their shifts".
[1] The film begins with two detectives, Rocco and Mickey, meeting two young women, Judy Grundy and Marcia Stillwell at a restaurant for a date.
Rocco and Mickey are shown again briefly with the women in the restaurant before we see them questioning three members of a sexual whipping party.
Afterward, Lt. Pope questions two Irish gang members who prompt him to talk about the "criminality" of mixing God and assholes.
Coproduced with Buzz Farbar and financed entirely by Mailer, Beyond the Law was shot over four nights with three film crews and sound professionals.
[2] While Mailer is credited as writer and director, the film had next-to-no script and the actors were given little direction other than to "wing it" in-character[3] and explore some ideas that echo his literary concerns, like the psychopathic hipster, the home-grown totalitarian, complex give-and-take of lovers,[4] and the existential relationship between the cop and the criminal.
Mailer instructed the group that they pair off to talk about how they would approach their roles; Quinn continues: "So I got together with [Joe] Shaw.
[11] This X-rated version had a limited circulation with New Line,[12] and follows Pope as he takes Lee Ray, a prostitute and dominatrix, back to her apartment where she lights candles and invokes the Powers of Darkness — her character seeming more sinister than earlier in the film.
[14] Bozung explains that Mailer took the film out of circulation because he was displeased with his appearance and, perhaps, he was guilty about his exploitation of Lee Roscoe.
[12] While not a commercial success – Mailer lost eighty thousand dollars on the film – Beyond the Law was generally well received.
[5] Writing for Variety, reviewer Byro states the film is "one of the most realistic and frightening studies of the policeman and his world which has ever been made"; that the "verisimilitude of dialog, acting and behavior is astonishing".
"[15] Richard Combs writes in the Monthly Film Bulletin: "But it is a measure of the flexibility and assurance with which Mailer handles the format generally that his insistent philosophical motifs jostle quite happily with more random, improvisational effects".
[16] The LA Times' Kevin Thomas sees Mailer's film as not really living up to the potential of "America's Number 1 writer": "As a kind of improvised put-on, "Beyond the Law" does have its moments of black irony and humor.
[1] Comparing Beyond the Law to Wild 90, Maggie McKinley says that "it too is unscripted and, constructed as a series of interviews between cops and criminals during a night in a police station, also makes reference to the ideas of performance and being watched".
She goes on to compare it to An American Dream and Tough Guys Don't Dance, saying that Mailer's belief that "the cop and the criminal [are] closely related" is "emphasize[d]" in all three works.