PRIDE AND GLORY

US, 2008, 128 minutes, Colour.
Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Noah Emerich, Jennifer Ehle, John Ortiz, Lake Bell.
Directed by Gavin O’ Connor.

New York police stories, especially about family and loyalty and corruption, are not exactly new territory. James Gray showed us a Brooklyn family of cops in We Own the Night. Pride and Glory is familiar but is well done and with a very strong cast.

When four police are killed during a raid to take in a drug dealer, New York's finest are not very happy. Neither are a group of rogue police who are a scandal for the finest. Police patriarch, Frank (Jon Voight in a commanding performance) persuades his younger son, Ray (Edward Norton), who is out of detective work after giving testimony in a cover-up inquiry some years earlier, to head the investigation. Paternal pressure forces him to accept.

And there the complications begin. His older brother, Francis (Noah Emmerich) is in charge of the Washington Heights division and discovers that there is corruption on his watch. Ray's brother-in-law, Jimmy (Colin Farrell) is a genial, football playing family man. However, we soon discover that this is only his surface personality. How will the police handle the case? How will the Internal Affairs officials handle the case? How will the family handle the case? Is loyalty to the police and their reputation to be maintained at all cost? Where does personal integrity lie for Francis? Where does the truth lie for Ray?

While there are pleasing family gatherings and playing with grandchildren, the film is mostly dark in its presentation of ordinary men faced with moral crises. It is very dark in its presentation of Jimmy and his cronies and their getting in too deep in corruption, drug-dealing and violently handling criminals, making themselves even worse. In a scene where Jimmy threatens a baby with an iron to extort the hiding place of the fugitive drug dealer, we gasp at its intensity – and then gasp at the tenderness Colin Farrell shows as he gives the baby back to its terrified mother.

This is also a film of the New York streets and that is where the culmination is played out before the father and sons go to face the inquiry.

1.A familiar story? Striking treatment?

2.New York City, Washington Heights, the Bronx? The police precinct? The world of drug dealing? Criminals? The police, homes, the boat? Authentic and realistic atmosphere? The musical score?

3.The title, the police, integrity, police loyalty, cover-up? Issues of corruption?

4.The introduction to the family, the football match, Jimmy playing, Francis, the news about the deaths of the police?

5.The situation, Francis and his being called, the dead police, the drug dealer and his escape? The impact of police dying? The personal relationships?

6.Frank, the patriarch, his relationship with his wife and children, grandfather? Police ideals? The family gatherings, the meals? His drinking? Playing with the children? Talking to Ray, pressurising him to go back to the investigation? The search for the killer? His assumptions about the police, loyalties, the rules, covering for others? His confronting Ray? The truth about Jimmy? His talking honestly with Francis but pressurising him? Internal Affairs, his sitting in on the interrogations? His final acceptance of Ray’s and Francis’s integrity?

7.Ray, his place in the family, his past career in the police? Talking with Francis about boyish dreams of being police? His testifying, the story, covering up, out of investigation, Missing Persons Bureau? The tensions with his wife, the separation, the visits to her? His living on the boat? The family gatherings? His relating to Francis, to Jimmy? His relationship with his father? His father’s pressure about going on the investigation team? His decision, going to the funeral? Following leads, finding the phone, the information about Sandy and the phone call to the dealer? Francis lying to him? The informer, confronting him, getting the address? The interrogation of the woman? The journalist and Sandy’s suicide in his car, the journalist questioning Ray? Going to the dealer, finding Jimmy, the torture, Jimmy taking Ray’s gun and shooting the dealer? His moral dilemmas? His father’s pressure to cover up? Talking with Francis, seeing Francis’s efficiency in taking charge of the siege? Jimmy, at the pub, fighting him? Arresting him – and the attack on Jimmy and his being beaten to death? Going to the inquiry with his father and with Francis?

8.Francis and the family, the oldest, his situation in the police, leadership, overlooking the deals that police did? His home life, his relationship with his wife, her dying of cancer, getting her ready to go to the dinner? His children? Talking with Ray, lying about Sandy, going to Sandy and confronting him? Dismissing him? The information, his dilemmas? Wanting to have a life, care of his children after his wife’s death? Talking things over with Ray, with his wife, her advice about integrity? The siege, his taking charge? Discussions with his father, not covering up, going to the inquiry?

9.Jimmy, playing football, a family man, his relationship with his wife, children, playing with them? The family meals? The information, Sandy and his associates? Sandy’s death? The visit of the dealer to Jimmy’s home? His violence? The information, asking the woman, threatening the baby with the iron – and his care afterwards? Going to the home of the dealer, taking Ray’s gun, shooting him? His lies during the inquiry? In the pub, Ray confronting him, their fight? The arrest, his death in the streets?

10.The police, the standover corrupt police, robbing the manager of the store, the shooting, the siege in the store, the arrest? Francis and his going in and reasoning with the policeman?

11.The media, the journalists, the links, the interrogations – Sandy, his distress about his situation, his regrets about his life, phoning the dealer, being the indirect cause of the policeman’s death? The journalist, shooting himself in the car?

12.The Internal Affairs, the interrogations, Ray and his refusing to give more information, Jimmy and his lies?

13.An authentic picture of the New York police? Good and bad?