‘A Man in Uniform’

David Wellington’s 1993 independent production, which owes a large debt to “Taxi Driver,� has a terrific idea: Henry Adler (Tom McCamus, pictured), a mousy bank clerk and sometime actor, gets a role as a brutal cop in a TV series and allows it to take over his personal life. The problem is that Henry is a blank, and his fixations and emotional contradictions, such as his passive demeanor and livid temper, are too clinical to engage us. McCamus is a capable actor, but he’s been asked to play a strenuous cipher. Yet the film is watchable because of the way it portrays the creepy, powerful feeling a weak man can acquire by wearing a police uniform. “A Man in Uniform� brings out the pathology in play acting (Cinemax Thursday at 8 p.m.).