Tom Wilkinson credited as playing...
James Reid
- [first lines]
- Jack Reid: [on the phone] Tell the Mayor, I'm insulted. I would never jeopardize the journalistic integrity of this newspaper for some rent-a-mayor's political agenda.
- Jack Reid: [to his son] So Britt, here we are again. Sent home after another schoolyard fight. I know you miss your mother. So do I. But I have to take care of 750 employees, and you have to take care of yourself. Still that seems to be asking too much.
- Young Britt: But I was trying to stop some bullies...
- [Britt, in his mind, is putting together the pieces between his father, Chudnofsky and Scanlon]
- James Reid: Think, Britt. You can figure this out, my son, with your brains.
- Britt Reid: Okay, two years ago, Scanlon decides to run for DA. He says he's cleaning up the streets of L.A., which is impossible. So he asked the media to slant the news. And you go along with it like everybody else?
- James Reid: No way. l refused.
- Britt Reid: So he... Shit! What does he do? So Scanlon decides to go really dirty. Makes a pact with a criminal. Chudnofsky kills your reporter. Vertolibe? Vertoleeb?
- James Reid: I didn't want more bloodshed, so I stopped reporting on crime.
- Britt Reid: Scanlon can hold up his part of the deal, keeping the media under control, and Chudnofsky does whatever he wants! But Chudnofsky had a different plan. He wanted to take over all the gangs of L.A. So that's when you decided to cut the strings.
- James Reid: I couldn't look in the mirror. I hated every word I said to you that morning, Britt.
- Britt Reid: So you start reporting on crime again. And now Scanlon is a dead man unless he proves he's still in control. He has no choice but to organize a meeting with you, and he kills you himself. In the end, you stood up for what's right, Dad. Now l have to do the same.
- Jack Reid: [after yaking off the young Reid's action figure's head] Do you think it makes me happy to do this?
- Young Britt: Yes!
- Jack Reid: No, it doesn't!