Affaires privées

This is sort of a slow starter, but once moving it goes quite nicely. Wouldn't matter anyway, I'm not really that impatient when it comes to a story I want to see.

Figgis, directs this internal-power struggle police story, with a candid view. Mike does a good job of building suspense, then,"BOOM!" It explodes in your face. This was also, between the actors, Garcia,(Raymond Avilla) and Gear's Officer Dennis Peck, an odd but interesting match-up. I think that the perfect cat and mouse game was this stories 'pearl'. These two shined along with others that rounded out the casting. There was a certain hatred between both characters that was just right, for the story-liner. It shows, in the story cops relating to spouses and family in stress produced situations as well as the other civil servants that we don't see on a public basis.

I thought that the way, this was set and brought to a scorching climax was well met by those that saw the movie. I think that Figgis set out and accomplished what he was looking for here. (***) Well Done.

Dennis Peck is a street cop who seems happy to stay at that level, and yet he spends significantly more money than he makes on his cops' pay. When IA officers investigate Peck's partner Van Stretch for planting drugs on a suspect and using unnecessary force, they decide to look into Peck more. However Peck knows how to exploit weakness in those around him and begins to clear up the loose links around him while pushing all Raymond Avila's buttons.

This was Figgis' first American film and he made an excellent start. The dark plot is pretty simple in terms of beginning, middle, start. What makes it so much more than that is the characters are so well drawn. Peck and Avila both become like each other the more we know about them, their methods, their thoughts and their weaknesses are all similar. It makes it harder to fit everyone into the mould of good guys and bad guys and keeps everything more interesting. The various twists don't always make sense but the film is forceful enough to keep everything moving.

Gere is on best form here, playing a character against type he is the embodiment of corruption, deceit and murder. Garcia is also excellent as Raymond, who blends his actions well from good into bad. Metcalfe is excellent as Garcia's partner who may or may not be motivated by the hatred of Gere's macho personae. It's also good to see Baldwin, Travis and Xander Berkley have good roles.

Overall this is a dark thriller that blends characters into one mess of corruption in the police. It is an excellent film with great characters.

This movie is one of the most tightly packed white-knuckle nail-biting suspense-thriller I have ever seen. The script and the background music are excellent. Richard Gere is in his top form as the cool-headed negative-lead in this movie. Andy Garcia always surprises me being such a little man in size but having such a heavy screen-personality (not to mention his penetrating eyes). Think of the difference between his roles in "Ocean's Eleven" and "The Untouchables". I personally admire Nancy Travis not only for her being a stunningly beautiful smart woman (she has the loveliest hair too) but also for her natural gift of acting ability, her throw of words, expression on her face, her movements, the way she carries herself ("Three Men and a Baby", "Three Men and a Little Lady", "Running Mates"). I don't know why she has never been the "most-demanded" actress in Hollywood! Laurie Metcalf was a perfect selection as Amy Wallace in this movie. The movie winds up to become a sharp quadruple in the end with these four people. I rate it 9 and ½ out of 10.

In Internal Affairs LAPD cop Andy Garcia finds himself transferred there and finds out despite the snow job given him, it's quite true nobody likes these people in the department. He's going to be even less popular because his first assignment with new partner Laurie Metcalf is to investigate William Baldwin, a guy he went through the Academy with.

Baldwin's got a load of brutality complaints against him. He suspects his wife Faye Grant of being unfaithful which turns out to be the case. However Garcia's and Metcalf's investigation of Baldwin leads to uncovering a hole host of illegal activities linked to his partner Richard Gere.

Gere in this film has one of the most amoral characters ever put on celluloid. His corruption goes way beyond just taking a few dollars to fix parking tickets. In fact he's corrupted a whole slew of his fellow officers without a bit of remorse.

Garcia also has a lot of issues and might not be the best guy in the world to take Gere down. Gere presses a lot of Andy's buttons, one of the things that makes him so dangerous is that he is a master psychologist without a degree.

Although Internal Affairs gets a bit too melodramatic at times, the cast performs well in their roles and fans of Richard Gere and Andy Garcia should definitely see this.

This intelligent and well-directed thriller has some brutal, extremely violent scenes, but what makes you really come closer to the tension created by this original and realistic plot is the psychological confrontation among the two main characters, and Mike Figgis works out on it,settling the battle in the sexual and physical aspects,what is evident in the second meeting of Garcia and Gere:Raymond Avila (Andy Garcia, who develops his role in a silent, but extremely lowering form) is a correct, honest Internal Affairs' agent, and he receives the mission to investigate Dennis Peck (Richard Gere, in what can be easily pointed as his best career's performance), a corrupt,charming and cruel cop who has a lot of ex-wives and sons.The moment in which Peck and Avila are together breaks out an explosive hostility: Peck starts to talk about family, and suddenly touches in a sensitive issue, Avila's wife.Avila doesn't like Peck's provocation, and hits him.The battle is set.This scene is very thrilling and memorable.The sound track and the photography contribute to build a hot and agile rhythm. Internal Affairs is an entertaining and interesting movie, and if you liked Q&A and The French Connection, you will enjoy it!