Review of Pride and Glory (2008) by Zane T — 26 Feb 2010

Cliches and Stereotypes would have been a more appropriate title for this movie. From the start, this movie plays up on both with a football game being played, which with any movie starting with a sporting event means something bad is going to happen. Well, NYPD officers under the command of Noah Emmerich's character are killed in some way that's never explained clearly but apparently it had to do with Colin Farrell, doing a Boston Rob meets Eddie Murphy's Raw Italian spoof, and drugs. Anyway, it's never clearly what is happening. Edward Norton plays a tortured detective whose ex-wife is giving little screen time for us to care about. Instead, we get a lot of Jon Voight, Farrell, Emmerich and Norton restating things we already know and delivering melodramatic soap-opera dialogue such as "He is your sister's husband" and crap about how drug dealers make more than cops. Emmerich seems to be the only actor in this movie who seems to portray the complexities of his character well as a high ranking police official who is involved in a scandal. Voight is so laughable. He seems to be more at place in a MAD magazine parady. Norton proves that he is more than willing to kill his once-promising career by playing in such drivel. As for Farrell, he is so over. His performance would have been great if this was a comedy. He says "fuck" a lot and walks around with this machismo, hard working blue collar attitude with an accent so thick it can withstand a .50 caliber blast. At one point, I expected him to grab his crotch and say, "It's right here" and I swear he is trying a little Bobby DeNiro at one point.

When the movie ends, there's a disclaimer clearly on the screen reminding the viewers that this movie is a work of fiction. No?! Really? I thought this was based on an actual case. The NYPD may have some crooked cops but this movie would have had a lot more balls and more grit if it showed us that with all the crooked cops in the world, a lot of them get off because the courts let them.