Pride and Glory

Colin Farrell and Edward Norton have been teamed by Hollywood in another police drama. We have seen police corruption before but this is outright horrendous. Police acting like common gangsters just holding up convienence stores and stealing their money and other miscellaneous store items. How they get away with this is pretty incredible. Finally, at the end, which tops off this mayhem, one store owner shoots the cop in the back. Which is risky on his part but it a suitable response to how he was treated and what the corrupt officer did to him by robbing him.

Norton is Ray and Farrell plays the out of control immoral officer Jimmy. They both know each other through family ties but professionally, they work in different sections of the department.

Jon Voight stars as Ray's father and he is a retired police captain who was an honest and proud officer who is ofcourse retired. He is devastated when accusations are pointing towards his own son, a professional actor which face is more recognizable than his name: Noah Emmerich. Noah plays Francis, Ray's brother and the family is almost to the point of breaking down through this madness. It all starts with several police officers being killed and then it turns out their target was tipped off by another police officer.

This movie is better than Copland which came out about ten years ago or more and explores the same subject. Is this movie better than Street Kings? I am not so sure, perhaps this movie had some better acting but Street King's acting was decent, had better music, and had a little more action. Neither are spectacular, but because of the music and excitement, I would give Street Kings the nod over this movie. For people who want a little more dialogue, Pride and Glory may be enjoyed by them a little more. I mean, the character development of Ray and his wife who he is about to divorce has been done so many times in movies, it is beyond old. I do not care, I am not sure who would. It does not have allot of bearing in the movie, I guess Ray's father, his attitude affected Ray's behavior and this may have contributed to the marriage downfall. OK, so there is not allot of wasted scenes in the movie.

The movie was sort of unique in that there was two police teams competing with each other, well, atleast one team was trying to beat the other team in finding this cop killer. This police team's reason were not really altruistic, they want to cover up their police misdeeds. They are led by Jimmy.

The movie takes place in NYC around Christmas time. I had no idea what this movie was going to be about, when it started out, I thought it was going to be a football, sports movie.

Jimmy gets his at the end. It blows up in their face. Being a police officer is really difficult. I am not sure, in this contempory world, the ACLU, liberals, the NAACP, why anyone would want to become a police officer. Why protect the people that will take your career with glee? But there is not any excuse to being police armed robber, that is bully behavior which can not be defended.

There is not any really attractive females in this movie, it was a solid drama though. The investigation scenes were entertaining and Norton playing the unsuspecting hero were impressive. He continues his outstanding career, Farrell adds to his as well. Ofcourse, Farrell is still in more of the building mode, Norton is established. Norton, his acting, in Primal Fear was just frighteningly good.

The other villians were gangster Mexicans in NYC. They were nasty, when people like that are killed, they are missed by only those of their own element.

I would allocate this movie 3 stars. ***