Alan Rickman played Ed in the film The January Man (1989).
- Year: 1989
- Genre: action, comedy, crime, mystery, thriller
- Director: Pat O`Connor
- Cast: Kevin Kline, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Susan Sarandon, Alan Rickman
- Plot: Two years after being forced out of the NYPD, quirky Nick Starkey is rehired by the mayor to help catch a serial killer after 11 women are murdered in the city.
Plot
On New Year’s Eve, Manhattan socialite Alison Hawkins returns home from the evening’s festivities. As she feeds her fish before going to bed, a killer uses a blue ribbon to strangle her to death. It is the latest murder by a serial killer who has been terrorizing the city for eleven months.
The mayor, frustrated with the lack of progress in the case, tells NYPD commissioner Frank Starkey to bring in his brother, former detective Nick Starkey. This is a controversial decision, as Nick left the force in disgrace two years earlier but may be the only police officer brilliant enough to capture the killer.
Frank talks Nick into returning, but only on the condition that he be able to cook dinner the next night for Frank’s wife, Christine, who is Nick’s ex-girlfriend. After a press conference announcing Nick’s reinstatement, Christine and Nick have dinner. Old wounds are opened, including mention of a canceled check which indicated that Frank was involved in the scandal that got Nick fired.
After reporting for work, Nick takes a different office than the one he was assigned because the light was not to the liking of his friend Ed, a painter. After getting Captain Alcoa to add Ed to the payroll as his assistant, Nick begins work on the case. His first lead is to speak to the mayor’s daughter, Bernadette, who was a friend of Alison. After Nick and Bernadette visit Alison’s apartment, he decides to let her stay at his apartment because she is too frightened to return to her own.
Nick realizes that the previous murders occurred on dates that are prime numbers, all of which are among the twelve prime numbers possible up to the number 31. Because 5 is the only one of the prime numbers that has not been used, Nick deduces that the next murder will take place the following night, on the fifth of the month. However, Nick is seemingly proven wrong when a woman is strangled one day ahead of Nick’s prediction, after which the killer leaps out the window to his death. Nick believes that this is a copycat killing, especially when he learns that the man broke a window, as opposed to picking a lock to gain entrance as in the other murders. Frank and the mayor consider the case closed and are content to be done with Nick.
Nick and Ed discover the position of the victims’ buildings, when seen on a map of Manhattan, forms the constellation Virgo. They also realize that all the rooms in which the murders took place have windows on the front of the building, and that when the exterior positions of the windows are lined up together according to which floor they are on, they correlate to eleven notes in the chorus of the song “Calendar Girl”. This enables them to identify where the killer will next strike.
Nick sets a trap with Bernadette as bait, outfitting her with a neck guard to prevent the killer from strangling her. The trio stakes out the room in a supply closet and witness the killer picking the lock to get into the apartment. They intercept the apartment’s resident and send Bernadette in, where she is attacked. Nick breaks in and, after a prolonged struggle with the killer, subdues him. He then wraps up the suspect in a carpet and delivers him to the police.
Christine arrives and tells Nick she’s broken up with Frank and hopes to reconcile. He rejects her in favor of a relationship with Bernadette.
