EXTREME JUSTICE (1993) - GIF

If ever a character actor had the cock-of-the-walk, it's Ed Lauter.  He's usually handed some standard police chief role, but he brings life to the character with a combination of supreme confidence, New York attitude, and little bits of physical minutia that are like Easter eggs for eagle eyed degenerates. 

His greatest role (certainly his most Lauter-esque) is in Death Wish 3, as the police chief in who antagonizes but later teams up with Charles Bronson to lay waste to every headband wearing ruffian within a 2-mile radius.  

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However, most of his roles are of the smaller, character actor variety that I was describing, where he only has a small window to insert his Lauter-isms.  A good example is Extreme Justice, particularly the scene where he has a beach conference with hot shot Lou Diamond Phillips, the newest addition to a police elite squad.  He explains to Lou that he has to play by the rules, stick to the book, if you will.  Lauter punctuates his speech with the following hand gesture, a divine a Lauter-ism as has ever been bestowed upon humanity.