Pride and Glory

There’s more pride than glory in this throwback cop drama, a movie so firmly in the tradition of heavyweight thrillers like Serpico, Prince of the City and Q and A that you would think the script must have Sidney Lumet’s fingerprints all over it.

In fact it’s written by Gavin O’Connor, who made Tumbleweeds and the hockey movie Miracle, and Joe Carnahan, who made Narc and Smokin’ Aces. O’Connor came up with the story with his twin brother Greg. They’re the sons of a New York City cop, so we can take it on trust that the details are as right as they feel. But it’s a shame they’ve come up with such a “been there, done that” plot.

Edward Norton and Noah Emmerich are the Tierney boys, Ray and Frances Jr. Both are cops, though they’re on different trajectories. Ray is nursing his alienation behind a desk after an unfortunate (but vague) incident a couple of years back. Frances is following in the old man’s footsteps, he’s a division chief well on the way up the political ladder, just like the old man (Jon Voight).

The movie begins with a report that four of Jr’s boys in blue have been shot. Two are dead, the other two are likely following them. Frances Snr. persuades Ray that he should be the one to take on the investigation – he knows these streets, these cops, and anyway it’s time he got back to doing what he does best. Ray reluctantly agrees. Unfortunately, the case comes much closer to home than either of them expects.

Fair enough: that’s a solid set up. But O’Connor weakens his hand with the introduction of Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell), brother in law to Ray and Jr. courtesy of his marriage to Megan (Lake Bell). He’s a street cop in Jr’s command. Jimmy’s hands aren’t just dirty: they’re practically dripping in the red stuff. Jr. is sort of implicated, but mostly through omission. He’s been distracted while his wife Abby (Jennifer Ehle) loses her long, slow fight against cancer.

Watch Prince of the City, you’re almost persuaded that whistleblowing on dirty cops is a mistake; in Lumet’s movie the ethics are murky and the psychology is acute. Here, well, Jimmy may be related, but he’s also willing to hold a hot iron inches from a new-born baby to extract information from one of his dodgy contacts. Later he frames Ray for murdering a suspect. I don’t think there’s much ambiguity here: Jimmy needs to be stopped. The only surprise is how reluctant Ray is to get on with it.

The actors do a decent job, considering, but the scenes are desperately hackneyed. “We can’t keep doing this,” moans Ray’s soon-to-be-ex wife. Any regular moviegoer will know exactly what she means: how many more times will we have to suffer this déja-vu?

Granted, originality isn’t everything. Last year, James Grey’s We Own the Night invested a very similar story with subtle character shadings and a subversive edge. He also came up with two or three outstanding set piece scenes. O’Connor falls short on every comparison. Even then, the climax is so bone-headed I’m tempted to suppose that the studio must have imposed it to make sure the punters left happy. (This movie has gone through a long and difficult gestation: originally planned to shoot seven years ago, it was cancelled as too depressing after 9/11.)

If this review is harsh it’s probably because the movie is just good enough that you want it to be better. Certainly I can imagine that if you haven’t seen some of the Lumet movies I mention it will seem more impressive. But even then, TV shows like The Wire and The Shield are taking this genre to a level far beyond anything on offer here.

Jennifer Ehle deserves singling out for a couple of sensitively played cancer scenes (the one element that smacks of authentic first hand experience), and I want to give a nod to Declan Quinn’s cinematography too. He gives the movie a hard, clear look – and none of this wobblevision nonsense.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com