Review of Prince of the City (1981) by Peter F — 01 Apr 2013

Prince of the City is classic Lumet for sure, but it's also sprawling to a fault. It's hard not to be impressed by the film's epic scope, using a huge multitude of actors and locations in the production, and it's looks at the complexities of the justice system are intriguing.

Still, the film is all over the place in terms of style and narrative, and while Treat Williams does do a fine performance, he doesn't quite do enough to make us sympathize with his cop-out-of-water character as we did for Al Pacino in Serpico.

Not one of Lumet's very best, but far from his very worst.