Q AND A

I was in the mood for a well told tale of police corruption and that is what I got, but (and this may explain the relatively low audience score of 59% on a well-known website) it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

Well actually I do know.  It needs a more charismatic protagonist than Timothy Hutton as Al, an Assistant District Attorney, and it doesn't need the highly implausible romantic subplot involving him and Nancy, an ex of his who is now the wife of a Puerto Rican crime boss.

And it could do with a better score than what we have here, which fluctuates from barely adequate to wildly inappropriate.  Quite how veteran director Sidney Lumet put up with it is a bit of a mystery, other than the fact that by 1990 the director of ‘Network’ and ‘The Verdict’ was at a low ebb in his career.  Which may explain the rather generous 88% critics gave it, according to the aforementioned website. 

Having got those gripes out of the way let me say there is much to enjoy, from the well written and constructed screenplay, by Lumet himself (notwithstanding the romantic subplot), to Nick Nolte as a corrupt cop, in the days before his voice went AWOL.

And there’s a host of enjoyable minor characters,  played by the likes of Luis Guzman, Armand Assante and Dominic Chianese.

Finally, a piece of trivia.  Nancy is played by Jenny Lumet, the director's daughter, and in checking out her resumé I learned that one of her grandmothers was Lena Horne (which yes also means Sidney Lumet was a son-in-law of the singer).  

RATING: x Find Something Better To Do