Distrito 34: Corrupción total

Many reviews here have trashed Jenny Lumet's acting in this film and I want to go on record saying that I thought she gave an above average performance. I know, she's the director's daughter, but I think she more than holds her own opposite the likes of Timothy Hutton and Armand Assante (she doesn't have any scenes with Nolte).

Lumet plays a girlfriend from Reilly's (Hutton) past. Reilly dated her when he was a beat cop and has since risen to Assistant DA. When the film begins it has been 6 years since their break-up and she strolls into a tense interview session on the arm of notorious drug czar Bobby Texador (Armand Assante). Obviously shaken by her involvement in the case, Reilly attempts to talk with her about their past. I think Lumet is quite convincing in her scenes with Hutton: wrenched emotionally as she kicks him out of her mother's apartment and touching as she discusses their failed relationship. She's no Meryl Streep, but she effectively conveys the anguish of a young woman forced to re-visit her painful past.

Nolte is incredibly powerful as rogue cop Mike Brennan, a brooding, unstoppable evil force unlike any other character Nolte has played. His Mike Brennan is a distant cousin to Denzel Washington's Oscar-winning performance in "Training Day". Assante is nearly perfect as the menacing-yet-philosophical drug lord Bobby Texador. One of my favorite aspects of this script is the multi-faceted nature of Assante's character. Audiences aren't usually asked to identify with drug dealers, but Lumet's script and Assante's performance make Texador into more than just a one note crook. Both he and Nolte were Oscar-worthy, yet neither was even nominated (Jeremy Irons and Joe Pesci took home the male acting Oscars in 1990).

My only criticism of the film is the way racial and ethnic stereotypes are forced into almost every scene: the hard-drinking Irish cop, the Italian mobsters, the shyster Jewish lawyer, the street-brawling Puerto Rican gang members. Maybe Lumet had a point to make by concentrating so obsessively on his characters' ethnic origins, but it seems like over-kill. Despite this flaw, Q&A is still an absorbing and powerful film.

Guess the film from the following description of its characters. A young man investigating misdeeds in the police force, motivated by the memory of his father (a legendary policeman) but also by the pain of having lost the affections of a woman he loves to another player in the drama. A renegade cop, rampaging violently through the city, but revered on the force for standing up to the scum on the streets. And the renegade's boss, who protects him, partly because he himself is on old-school Irish policeman; but partly because he appreciates having his own private bag-man, especially in his dealings with organised crime. Throw in some prostitutes for a little background colour, and it sounds like a perfect description of 'L.A. Confidential'. But it also describes this tough and underrated movie made by Sidney Lumet some years before Curtis Hanson's film.

Whereas Hanson's film was stylised, and glamorised violence (provided the cause was just), Lumet has gone for a more realist approach, and his bad cop (played mesmerisingly by Nick Nolte) is completely rotten, in fact resembling Harvey Kietel's 'Bad Liutennant' in Abel Fererra's movie. The film is dated by its ghastly electronic soundtrack, and more interestingly by its portrait of New York at a time when the city was at its lowest ebb. But it's a very well assembled thriller, exploring issues of race, mixed loyalties and the meaning of good policing without flinching from a grim picture of life on the margins of law abiding society. Lumet has had a long career, but this is one of his better films, and ultimately more truthful than Hanson's stylish charade. Each are good, in their own way: why is only one so appreciated?

Lieutenant Michael Brennan has a tough reputation as an old-style cop that breaks balls but gets the job done. However had someone seen Brennan hiding in a dark alley outside a club until his suspect came out for a p1ss only for Brennan to shoot him dead and plant a gun that had been used in other murders, then that reputation may not do him much good. On this occasion Assistant DA Al Francis is brought in to do the investigation – one that is sold to him as a formality to get him started. The Q & A's go well but Francis is given enough to doubt that the shooting was as clean as Brennan tells it – however Brennan is not the type you easily square up to and soon the stakes are high.

Opening with a sudden moment of violence this film leaves you in no doubt that Brennan is not a rough cop so much as a cop operating above the law on his own agenda. Like The Shield has done recently this drama puts us in the complex world of the grey areas and invites us to consider the pay off between doing things by the book or taking hard action and "getting results". It doesn't do this to a great extent though – just enough to be add layers to the character but clearly corrupt enough to be the evil heart of the story. The narrative builds a dark drama involving the police investigation into Brennan on one side, with the criminal awareness of Brennan's murders on the other. It isn't really a character piece about Brennan so much as it is a straight crime drama but it works very well for what it is. I have no idea why it is so underrated on IMDb because it is an effective thriller with an enjoyably tough edge to it from start to near-finish. I say near-finish because the film concludes by tying up the story with Francis' relationships and soul – neither of which are that well done across the film and thus I didn't care as much as I should have done.

Lumet's direction is good and captures the depressing feel of New York at its lowest point. However the choice of music has two detrimental effects. Firstly it dates the film really badly, which is maybe a problem that can be forgiven as part of time going by. The second impact is less forgivable and must have been a problem at the time and this is how the music fits with the drama. For example several key scenes are played out under the chirpy tune "Don't Double-Cross the Ones you Love"; it is as grating and clunky as it sounds and it is a stupid effect that happens several times with the same result.

The cast are mostly very good though. Nolte chews the scenery and steals every scene with a character so monstrous that even his absurd handlebar moustache cannot take away from it. Hutton is good enough to do the job but sadly his character isn't as convincing as it needed to be; the script tries to make him more interesting than a choir boy but it doesn't do it very well. Assante is a little OTT at times but he works well in his character and fills the gap left by Nolte's absence. Minor support is good and features a cast that got starry with time – Guzmán, Dutton, Chianese, Finkel and others. Lumet tries hard but her part of the narrative is weak and thus her task is a rather thankless one.

Despite the problems though this is still a solid and dark cop drama that holds the interest well. Some of the performances may verge on ham, the music may be mostly awful and some elements of the narrative fall flat but for what it does well it is certainly worth a look.

I liked this film, a lot. It had some uneven moments in it, mostly Sidney Lumet's daughter's attempt at acting. However, Nolte and Assante are GREAT! This is gritty and realistic movie making. One sympathizes with the somewhat idealistic assistant district attorney (Timothy Hutton) as he tries to do the right thing, with so many thing in his way. The language of the movie is raw, with many memorable quotes. However, after viewing the movie you will find yourself remembering the roles of Nolte (Frank Brennan) and Armand Assante (Bobby Texador). Nolte is a cross between John Wayne and Ted Bundy. He is the first cop through the door and the first to pull out his weapon. He gets the job done, but he also breaks the law whenever he sees fit. Hutton, like many, admire Nolte, but the more they find out about the guy, the more they see that he might be the real threat to society. Bobby Tex is the very charismatic drug dealer that honestly wants to get out of the business alive. It is rare that the character that you root for the most is a drug dealer, but this movie maybe the one exception. He is better than the murdering cop. Hutton plays the straight guy in between these two forces of nature. Hutton has personal demons and real demons standing in way of doing the right thing. Good, solid story that you will enjoy. No Hollywood ending here. This movie is RAW!

The last and least of Sidney Lumet's three stories of (more or less) innocents trying to uncover police corruption and blow the whistle on the guilty, and the only fictional story. There's nothing wrong with the acting of the principals. Nolte is brutish and tall in an over-the-top performance. (He always looks larger on screen than in person.) His New York accent, however, is clearly superimposed on an unregional Omaha set of phonemes. Jenny Lumet looks splendid but has the same problem with her accent, and her scenes are too long as part of a mixed-up romantic subplot that doesn't hold together well. Timothy Hutton has less of a notable problem with his speech, and he is really quite good as the innocent-looking but by no means weak investigating attorney. He even looks pretty Irish. O'Neal is the smoothly villainous and murderous head of the investigation, and a very good villain he is, as usual. Guzman and Dutton provide excellent supporting roles. And Armand Assante seems built for the part of the iron-eating PR drug dealer who has made the decision, a thoroughly rational one, to get out and live in the Caribbean sunshine. His body movements provide a language unto themselves, his smallest gestures are magnetic. They draw so much attention to themselves that they are almost the self-parody that they were in his hilarious spoof of detective movies. He's an exceptional actor.

The movie's plot, however, leaves a good deal to be desired. Its fictional skeleton shows through. You've never seen so much ethnicity on the screen before, and it's misplaced. It's easy enough to believe that racial insults are offhandedly traded among in-group members but difficult to believe that every conversational exchange, no matter how casual or intense, must include one. And at the very time when some of these barriers are beginning to weaken, judging from the rising rates of intermarriage. Serpico's story was relatively simple. Prince of the City far more complex and realistically tragic. This one is simply hard to follow as well as hard to believe. Boats turn into fireballs in unlikely ways, as they do in quickie action movies. Characters fly back and forth from San Juan to New York and some are killed and it's difficult to keep track of what's what and who's who. It isn't that Lumet has lost his touch.

When a character is shot in the neck, man does he bleed out. But the director is working with less compelling material here and in any case this kind of narrative is running out of steam. All of that notwithstanding, this is still a notch above most of the junk polluting the multiplex screens today.