The last 25 years have been diluting action movies featuring cops from the glory days of true glorious "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon" movies of the 80s. Most of the buddy cop movie cliches almost always fall under the Lone Wolf cliches. With all these cliches, scriptwriters don't really need to use any creativity just string enough thread-bare cliches together to form the newest direct to video cop movie. However, Dolph Lungren, Steven Segal, or Jean Claude Van-Damme can only star in so many lone wolf cop movies before the genre runs out of any any fresh cliches to milk completely dry.

This isn't a complete list of cop cliches. Just watching a couple of low budget cop movies ought to have you see how many others that could be spotted. For instance, I excluded the mandatory ex love-interest who falls hopelessly back in love for the Lone Wolf cop despite all the bad blood between them. The martial arts prowess isn't mentioned either because old school Lone Wolf cops could take care of anyone with a few punches without relying on a Jet Li beatdown.

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Top 10 Checklist of the Lone Wolf Cop who Plays by his own Rules.

10. The precinct captain, who is motivated by the mayor's politics, always hates him for being a violent psychopath and has plenty of paperwork to contend with from suspects continually threatening to sue the city for abuse and or false arrest.

9. Lone Wolf Cop who plays by his own rules seems to be just a couple of minutes from a eating a bullet by the way he lovingly stares at his gun when first waking in the morning.

8. Lone Wolf Cop who plays by his own rules is haunted by deep, terrible pain such as the death of his partner, wife, or a beloved hamster. Normally, a flashback will have him running towards them screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!" in slow motion to indicate how his inner pain drives him.

7. Any Lone Wolf Cop who plays by his own rules besides being a highly effective killing machine is also a highly effective love machine, too. Nothing like the obligatory love scene to power up the cop before his final battle.

6. Every Lone Wolf Cop who plays by his own rules needs a good wisecrack. "Do you feel lucky, punk?" is definitely is a great line. Most Lone Wolf Cops who play by their own rules don't have a great one-liner.

5. The necessary "criminal scum have no rights" speech is preceded by how the Lone Wolf Cop has violated the civil rights of the murderer or drug lord.

4. I wouldn't say he's an alcoholic but before crawling out of bed, he needs 3 shots of whiskey. His apartment has more liquor bottles than a college campus does after a weekend.

3. The new partner will be totally different than our Lone Wolf Cop and also the odious comedic sidekick, too. The new partner will eventually learn that playing it safe and by-the-book isn't right.

2. The partner who is less than a week away from retiring to start a business preferably a fishing charter. His death will be the final motivation for the Lone Wolf Cop who plays by his own rules to take care of the crime boss.

1. At the end of the movie, the Lone Wolf Cop who plays by his own rules that has killed at least 30 goons and blown up 2 city blocks will finally his comeuppance on his bootlicking superiors.