Movie Review - 'Pride and Glory'

Pride and Glory Starring Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, and Jon Voight Directed by Gavin O'Connor Rated R

Pride and Glory lives and breathes its characters. That seems like an automatic requirement, yet when you see 150 movies a year, you can say that about half of them don't live up to it. This film's distinct strength is that it convincingly conveys the lives, loves, needs, wants, and dialogue of the tough life of a New York City cop, as opposed to a lot of other movies that might have some crime and writes cops into the story because they need characters to fire weapons. Following a shootout that left four officers dead, the extended Tierney family is called into action. Captain Francis Tierney (Noah Emmerich) presides over the investigation, while his brother-in-law Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell) mourns the loss of men directly under his command. The patriarch of the Tierney clan (Jon Voight) is the chief of police, and he persuades his younger son Ray (Edward Norton) to go back on active duty, leading a task force that combs the streets for clues. And he may not like what he finds.There are plenty of crooked cop movies, and there's always a good cop in the mix somewhere. As we've seen in L.A. Confidential, you don't even have to be that likable to be a good cop or a redeemable character. In Pride and Glory, we are squarely on Edward Norton's side from the beginning. He's a bit of an outsider, even in his own family. But he's smart, dutiful, and plays by the rules. We also appreciate the predicament he's in, trying to find justice when it comes with a heavy, heavy price. We hope - and to a degree - need him to do the right thing.We are less trusting of Colin Farrell here, perhaps because he generally has a bit of the shinola salesman in his work. Our instinct takes over and we get a little leery of him. He's a good looking guy, he's a charmer, and we aren't surprised if or when he takes the easy way. This film is part of a kind of career reinvention for Farrell; his best three performances have come right in a row, with Cassandra's Dream and In Bruges breaking new ground earlier in the year for a talented guy who may have put the paycheck in front of the portrayals for a while. There's good work, as well, by Voight, and to a lesser extent Emmerich and Jennifer Ehle, who play's Emmerich's cancer-stricken wife. The moral of the story is pretty threadbare, but that doesn't make Pride and Glory insufficient. Where it's lacking is in its pacing, particularly the middle third, and it does feel a bit heavy-handed after a while. It's an interesting follow-up to Miracle for director Gavin O'Connor, although that film suffered from the same problems: Too long, drove the point home a little too deliberately. There's also a weird misstep toward the very end of the film that is pretty far removed from why we're buying a ticket. O'Connor could have and should have scrapped it altogether.But if you can withstand that, and if you don't mind a couple of very, very tense scenes, Pride and Glory is a reliable cop drama with tough, believable dialogue and flashes of greatness in the key performances.

Comments

[Ankit]

Pride and Glory is a procedural story and it never keeps the audience out of the loop. The film opens with the death of four police officers and there is never a doubt that Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell) and his team of dirty cops had something to do with it. They probably didn't pull the trigger themselves, but you don't put it past the idea they may have hired a gun to do the job. Dirty cops, drug money, murder, everything is at the center of the story and to top it all off a family of cops get twisted and tied into the mess.

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