Pride and Glory

With a script that entered into production in 2001 Pride and Glory was one of the most highly prized screenplays in Hollywood, with names like Mark Wahlberg and Hugh Jackman attached to the leading roles. But because of the attack on 11th September 2001 the idea of film about dirty NYPD officers would have been in bad taste. It proposed until 2008 and had Ed Norton and Colin Farrell in the lead roles. So was it worth the wait?

Pride and Glory tells the story of a family of Irish American men who are members of the NYPD. Ray (Ed Norton) is a skilled investigator and a plain clothes detective, whilst his brother-in-law Jimmy (Colin Farrell) is a mid-ranking uniformed officer. The family seem close but all have their problems, Ray is suffering from guilt of a previous case gone wrong and his marriage falling apart. His brother Francis Jr. (Noah Emmerich), a senior station chief, is having to support his wife whom suffering from cancer and their father Francis Sr. (Jon Voight) is a even more senior police officer and a borderline alcoholic. Only Jimmy seems to have a strong family life. The family and officers are called into action when four of Francis Jr. officers are killed in action and all of them are colleagues of Jimmy. Ray is assigned the case but soon discovers that it a much more complex case of a simple shooting. Jimmy and his colleagues had been running amok within Francis Jr.'s station as the man is struggling with his personal life. Jimmy is a corrupt cop, selling drugs, robbing and acting like a paid assassin. He uses violence and imitation to get revenge and retrieve money his crew has lost. But Ray is slowly closing in on his brother-in-law and a professional and personal conflict is about to arise.

Gavin O'Conner is an effective director, trying to make a gritty and violence film about the NYPD. His effects are noble, he does not tone down the violence and the physical poverty that some people would have to live in. He films it in a slightly grey ting and uses hand-held cameras very effectively, giving the film a realistic and almost documentary style to it. There is also strong performances from Norton and Farrell (though he is forced into angry mode for most of the film). Voight is also pretty good throughout the film. But some of the supporting cast members were weaker in comparison, particular Emmerich who did not seem to match Norton or Farrell.

What makes the film not as strong as it should be is the script. It should have been a simple straight-forward police-thriller and attempt to be a update of the Al Pacino film Serpico. It attempted to be realistic and could and should have shown how corrupt cops can work in a modern setting and how other police officers would investigate them. But the screenwriters of O'Conner and Joe Carnahan do two big problems: first is that it's a bit unrealistic that a whole family this day and age would all be cops and even more unlikely a senior father cop could assign cases to his sons. In real life wouldn't the police authorities split them up to ensure there is no favouritism? Second is the plot is bogged down with too many sub-plots: it's noble of the writers to bring about some extra character development, but there was too much that detracts from the main plot of the film and some areas lead to no where, like the journalist sub-plot. What the two writers could have done was either cut out most of the sub-plots to make a tort film, making the film longer, extend the sub-plots and made the film a bit longer or really extend everything about the film and a make an effective 'The Wire' type TV series. The film also suffers from so very silly, unrealistic scenes like Ray and Jimmy clearing a bar and then having a big fist fight. The dialogue too was weak, suffering from the usual cop-film clichés we have all heard before. Finally the film also drags a little in the beginning and goes a little silly in the end. It was the middle part of the film which was the best.

There was potential in the film but it was not fully realised. It needed some re-writes before it should have been made. But it is a noble effort of film.