Justiça Cega

Internal Affairs is a thriller with a lot of nerve. It takes risks, presenting the audience with a grim and violent story of police corruption. It doesn't care if you like it or hate it, just that it does its job of getting under your skin. The main reason the movie is so effective is because of Richard Gere's powerhouse performance. It caught me off guard, since before I saw it I'd always seen him as the hero or love interest, far from the territory he's in here. I'll get more into Gere's performance later, just let me clear up the plot.

Gere is Dennis Peck, respected vice cop, father and husband, determined to do the job. Oh, he's also the dirtiest cop on the force. He plants evidence, shoots suspects, sets up his fellow officers, doing it all without a shed of remorse. The hero of the movie is Raymond Avila (Andy Garcia), newly assigned to the Internal Affairs division of the LAPD and a friend of Peck's partner, Van Stretch (Stephen Baldwin). When Stretch introduces Peck and Avila it's obvious they don't like each other. Not getting along becomes an understatement as Avila starts to uncover Peck's corrupt behavior and looks to put a stop to it. But Peck won't go down without a fight, and he'll do whatever he can to keep Internal Affairs off his back.

As far as police thrillers go, Internal Affairs is one of the meaner kind. Rather than put us into the normal day of a cop it decides to put us into the normal day of bad cop, a really bad cop. This is a guy who would kill a man for stepping on his shoe. He'd probably kill his family too, and laugh while he was doing it. Think I'm exaggerating? Not so much. Peck is the embodiment of all the bad guys in police thrillers and none of the cops in them.

Of all of the actors you could find to play a guy like this, who would have guessed that a likable actor like Richard Gere would ever fit the bill. Does he ever. He gives that kind of against type performance we see a lot from normally good guy actors. We've seen it from Denzel Washington (Training Day), Tom Cruise (Collateral), and Robin Williams (Insomnia) in the past few years. Each of these guys have given performances that have altogether changed how we see them as actors. Gere is no exception here. He seems to be having a blast too, chewing the scenery every chance he gets.

He's surrounded by some good supporting work. Andy Garcia gives Avila a kind of determination you'd expect from a guy who's life has been wrecked by a guy like Peck. As his partner, Laurie Metcalf is likable and isn't as wasted as she could have been.

But when it all comes down to it, this is Gere's show, and he shines in his only truly villainous role to date. He probably had enough of playing the villain by the time he was done with this movie. That would make sense. After playing a guy like Dennis Peck, any actor would need time off from playing the bad guy. I'd like to see Gere play the bad guy again though, and give us another surprising and terrifically evil performance.

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!

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.

Meet Dennis Peck, a real live sociopath. And he's got a badge and a gun. This character might be one of the most truly evil creations in the movies. On the surface, he seems like a terrific guy, a wonderful dad who plays with his kids on his days off. Even his ex-wives like him. But he's used his influence and his skill at manipulating people to create a virtual empire of wealth and power. Andy Garcia is excellent as Raymond Avila, who stumbles across this web and begins to dismantle it. The level of supporting actors is fantastic, much better than most movies. Standouts include Nancy Travis as Andy's wife, Laurie ("Roseanne") Metcalf as his partner, and a young William Baldwin as Peck's partner. I rate this movie 8 out of 10.

The subject here (police corruption) is banal, but it gains extra value and weight by Figgis' atmospheric direction and, especially, by Richard Gere's powerful performance in perhaps his most atypical role (and as far as I know, his only truly villainous one). After watching him in this film, I don't know how some people can still doubt that he's a talented actor as well an attractive star. The rest of the cast is also good. The finale, however, is somewhat disappointing. (**1/2)