Des hommes de devoir

This movie was on one of those premium channels, the kind you have to pay extra for. The storyline read real good. After watching it for about 10 minutes it looked really cheaply made. Sure enough, this was nothing more than a TV Movie passed along as a real movie. The plot I have seen before many times in better movies. There was absolutely no chemistry between any of the actors who looked as though they had just read their lines just before walking on the set.

This true crime story focuses in the murder of a state trooper who had a good inkling of stopping suspicious vehicles that occurred in 1981.

Nicholas Turturro plays an enthusiastic young cop who was the partner of the murdered trooper and reluctantly teams up with arrogant FBI agent, Adam Arkin to find the culprits who are traced to be members of a left wing domestic underground terrorist group involved in robberies and blowing things up.

The film benefits with familiar faces such as Miguel Ferrer, Stephen Root, Dean Norris and future Oscar winner Melissa Leo.

The story is rather generic, an upset and eager cop going after the bad guys who killed his partner, teamed up with a more aloof FBI agent. Even the bad guys who do not want to kill ordinary people even cops but one of them is trigger happy leading to devastating results.

At least the terrorists were more interesting as a whole with a focus on their families and mores.

i know tommy manning personally from many years ago. Mr. Ferrer was not like tommy at all. i think he did a pretty good job at portraying him though but, it was not real to me because i knew him. the movie was slow and undramatic. Mr. Manning is still of the same mindset that he was back in the days of committing the crimes. he is a prisoner at leavenworth and will remain there for a long time. he will have a hearing for parole in the year 2010. i personally do not think that he will get parole due to his unchanged attitude. although i liked him way back in the 60's, he hasn't learned that violence is not the answer. i would like to see the movie redone with a little more drama.

It's a TV movie,you should expect that there aren't going to be mind-blowing special effects.

And, to be honest, this movie is a bit weird in that the cops are relentlessly hunting "good bad guys." The "terrorists" are a freedom front that wants to destroy the means of production of certain companies for political reasons, but they try to make sure no one gets hurt (which, of course, backfires). So it's hard to "root for" the cops because the movie makes you sympathize with the terrorists and their families: ordinary people in almost every sense.

Arkin and Turturo provide good performances...Stephen Root (also of Newsradio) is very good in a much different role than people are used to seeing him in. Miguel Ferrer is decent.