A BLACK MAN’S REVIEW OF…
PRIDE AND GLORY
PRIDE AND GLORY (R)
Biases: Nice cast, but generic-looking cops-gone-bad trailer.
Players: Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, co-writer Joe Carnahan, co-writer/director Gavin O’Connor
Logline: A messy bloodbath of four murdered NYPD cops takes reluctant investigator Ray Tierney (Norton) down a rabbit hole of police corruption inside his police chief father’s (Voight) department, with all roads leading to his ethically challenged cop brother-in-law Jimmy Egan (Farrell), working under the blind eye command of his older brother Francis Tierney, Jr. (Noah Emmerich).
The Deal: A terse, humorless cop drama with serious actors that fully captures the strength of New York City’s diversity, “Pride and Glory” has a lot of things going for it. Notably first is its cast, from the above-the-title stars like Norton and Farrell, to the equally strong, lower wattage star-in-the-making like John Ortiz (Miami Vice). The preternaturally believable Edward Norton, always such a convincing and committed actor whether he’s imbuing humanity into a comic book character (The Incredible Hulk) or humanizing a neo-Nazi skinhead (American History X), centers the movie as Ray, a man whose bilingual skills aid his talent for seducing information out of witnesses. Although not pure as the fresh-driven snow himself, Norton’s somewhat estranged from beat cop life Ray is our moral compass in a movie/script that insists on not having one. Colin Farrell’s renegade Jimmy exudes an almost gleeful, unrepentant, three-dimensional amorality that is oddly grounded by a morality: (immediate) family first, brotherhood second, get money third, and everyone else can go to hell. It’s almost refreshing in its lack of rationalization of it: it just is what it is. Jon Voight plays an excellent drunk of a proud, patrician Chief/father. Ortiz turns in good, tortured work as a crooked cop who suddenly catches a case of the Conscience.
However, in a post “The Wire” world, a movie like this fails to impress or move me much. “Pride” is a generic, dirty cop drama sheathed under a glossy pedigree, excessive violence, and “gritty” profanity trying to ape alpha male cop verisimilitude. It is well-intentioned. The Joe Carnahan script (Narc) has occasional crackles of spontaneity and drama, revolving around the pressures of family - genealogical and fraternal - that takes on added heft in the third act. When he’s not annoyingly shaking the handheld camera in this film, Gavin O’Connor manages to stage a nice, low-tech, mano-a-scumbag finale. But at an overlong 129 minutes due to a rangy, messy but interesting script, I just don’t know what to make of this movie. It’s not high art, it’s not trash. So if it’s not too good and not too bad, then it must be juuuuust alright. Or, like Jimmy, it just is what it is.
@@ REELS
(TWO REELS)
Extra medium.
UTC’s resident film critic Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for The 213 Magazine, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com where his new novel I DO? is available NOW.
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