Review of Prince of the City (1981) by Brett W — 27 Sep 2007

Although I would have liked to have seen Brian De Palma's take on this material (as he was originally slated to direct), Lumet still stylishly accomplishes a lot with this tale of a narcotics officer agreeing to testify against his crooked co-workers after struggling with - and wanting to make up for - his own past indiscretions while dealing with degenerate junkie informants.

I'm beginning to find that many of Lumet's most successful pictures have the same trajectory: an unflinching idealist attempting (sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to take on a corrupted arm of the government, or organization â?? THE HILL, SERPICO, NETWORK, Q&A, and perhaps even portions of DOG DAY AFTERNOON.