Q & A

Following Serpico (1973) and Prince of the City (1981), veteran urban crime film director Sidney Lumet completed a thematic trilogy about New York City police corruption with this noir drama. When New York City cop Mike Brennan (Nick Nolte) shoots an unarmed Hispanic drug dealer in cold blood, he ...more

Sidney Lumet's occasionally powerful film on the ubiquity of racial strife and corruption in the N.Y.P.D. and the New York legal system features a tremendous performance by Nick Nolte, but is ultimately too sprawling and shapeless to have the impact he intended. Adapted from a novel by a New York assistant DA who went on to become a New York State Supreme Court Justice by a director who has made classic films about the corruption of the N.Y.P.D., it suffers less from a knowledge deficit than a ...more