Dever e Honra

Taut police Internal Affairs investigation. Great production and acting. What is missing is any real crime scene investigation which would have taken the story in a different direction. Instead the relationships between almost everyone involved become the focus. The movie is the better for it but you have to forget about the forensics.

It is a great movie, but needs to have a parental review.

I haven't even gotten 30 minutes into the movie before 2 full blown sex scene hit.

The scenes are full nudity and breast are fully out there.

I really don't care for movies like this.

I am interested in the movie not the sex scene.

If I wanted to see a sex scene I would get a porno.

I just want to let everyone know what is in the movie.

So, not recommended for anyone who doesn't want to see this kind of movie with nudity in it.

As a low-budget DTV production, "Badge of Honor" is a credible effort. It's not in the same league as "We Own the Night," "Street Kings" or "Serpico;" however, it maintains the audience's attention and interest. Its greatest strength lies in credible performances by the entire cast. It's greatest weakness is undoubtedly the incessant camera movement. I can't remember a single shot that looked as if the camera were locked down. The amount of camera motion, particularly in inappropriate shots, was frequently distracting. It also seemed a little thin on forensics and police procedures. For that matter, a large drug deal in an early scene didn't seem very realistic. The POV was also a little muddled, as at least two characters had memory flashes. Compared to top-notch police procedural films, it ranks somewhere in the middle of the herd, well back from the must-see films. However, compared to DTV productions shot in Eastern Europe starring faded action stars from the 1970s and 1980s, it's a much more rewarding cinematic experience.

Summary: This film is fantastic. Deserves a much better rating than it currently has on IMDb (4.7). Don't see why this movie's average rating is not at least a 7.

Comments:

The rare movie with an empowered, non-hypersexualized female lead character, whose humanity is the most important thing about her, not merely that she is a female. She is not fetishized nor relegated to caring only about relationships with men, nor does she need to be rescued by a "big strong man" to do all the dirty work for her. Rather, she is capable of doing anything any human person can do, but what in cinema is often reserved for males alone, such as wielding worldly power, being emotionally tough, and perhaps most importantly, simply being independent. It is not enough to merely put a gun in a female character's hand and let her shoot someone, and then celebrate the movie as non-sexist. Not if said female character is still portrayed as utterly relationally dependent on men, as usually happens in such movies. Not here.

In line with this, the movie takes a far more realistic, compassionate approach to how it portrays human relationship, character, and choice, rather than the macho, male-dominant, "shoot/beat up everyone and make it better" tropes in so many other movies with similar subject matter. It actually takes the time to show the plot from the point of view of all the characters, female or male, adult or child, powerful or powerless, "glamorous" or ordinary. One example being a gunshot victim's sister. Just an ordinary kid, no reason the movie has to include her at all, but it does, because this movie cares about the human element. In this regard Badge of Honor is very reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's best directorial work, such as "Gran Torino" and "Unforgiven".

OK for a got-nothing-else-to-do movie. Whomever was in charge of writing stuff in this film needs spelling classes ASAP. Apart from the "Assualt" mistake in the report, the Credits at the end are FULL of errors: The character appears as "Jocob", another one is "Smauel". Then there are three "Sunt Doubles", an "Add'l Firs Assistant B Camera", an "Assitant Costume Designer" and a "Set Cosumers Supervisor". I'm sure there are other goofs I didn't catch, especially among the First and Last Names of people involved in the movie. One positive thing about the movie is FINALLY using people who really do speak Spanish playing the roles of Latinos something Hollywood, completely surrounded by people from Central and South America doesn't usually do. Maybe it was Martin Sheen's influence or that Agustin's ear would hurt from the bad Spanish found in most American movies. Unfortunately, the director wasn't the right person to check the credits or assign that job to whomever did it.