'Pride and Glory' review

Colin Farrell and Edward Norton (Credit: Glen Wilson/Warner Bros.)

Photos:

Four cops are dead, and NYPD officer Ray (Edward Norton), his brother Francis (Noah Emmerich), their brother-in-law Jimmy (Colin Farrell) and their alcoholic dad (Jon Voight) want to know what happened. As the guys get deeper, it turns out—gasp! shock!—some of their fellow policemen could be dirty.

The buzz: This smells an awful lot like writers Joe Carnahan ("Smokin' Aces") and director Gavin O'Connor ("Miracle") are trying to be Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River") or James Ellroy ("L.A. Confidential"). Norton's reliable but Farrell ain't, and from the looks of things it would be a relief if "Pride" lived up to the low standard of other derivative cop flicks like "Street Kings."

The verdict: Humorously humorless, "Pride and Glory" doesn't add anything to the police procedural genre, nor does it even do the same old thing with much spunk or grit. A dying wife and a threatened baby are thrown in for shock value when the story can't muster its own excitement, perhaps because it tips its hand so early and we spend most of the movie waiting for the other shoe to fall. Not even Norton can handle dialogue elevated to a laughable degree of faux toughness, and the movie's so eager to be firm that it goes totally soft, like a hard-boiled egg left in the pot too long.

Did you know? Dad (Voight) raises an interesting question. If every drink you've had came out of the same glass, can you claim you've only had one?

Add a comment