A Film A Day: Pride and Glory (2008)

Pride and Glory (2008)

Cast

Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Noah Emmerich, Shea Whigham, Frank Grillo, John Ortiz, Manny Perez, Lake Bell, Rick Gonzalez, Christina Cabot, Jennifer Ehle, Declan Quinn

Storyline

Honest homicide detective Ray Tierney (Edward Norton) is assigned to investigate the death of four cops of the precinct run by his potentially crooked older brother Francis (Noah Emmerich). As the investigation begins to reveal some troubling facts about the precinct, it gradually becomes apparent that Jimmy Egan, the policeman who is also Tierney's brother-in-law, may be the man orchestrating many of the suspected crimes.

Opinion

Edward Norton has long been one of my favourite actors, and even though he hasn't chosen particularly good projects lately, I decided to give this film a try, also because it stars Colin Farrell too, another of my favourite actors. Well, they didn't disappoint me, but the film, what to say about it.

Atrociously written, predictable, tedious, and tenseless, Pride and Glory is a complete mess, hard to watch, and hard to follow.

First of all the length. This film could have been easily a half hour shorter: maybe the result would have been better that way.

The writing is an absolute disaster. The storyline is good, but it's unbelievable how terribly it has been developed. The story jumps from place to place until it makes no more sense. Some parts are completely useless, such as the football game at the beginning - was it supposed to make you think Jimmy Egan is a good guy? I don't know.

The good cop/bad cop story slowly turns into a family drama. The dying wife is a good motivator, but we don't need to see so much of her story, same goes with Jimmy as a family man. Also, every single character has an emotional breakdown.

The dialogue completely lacks intelligence. Basically everybody swears. Then there's Spanish. There are some scenes where they talk in Spanish, but no subtitles are given. I understand a little bit of Spanish, but I know how frustrating can be watching something and having no clue of what their saying.

The up and down camera movements are annoying, and the editing is another big fail - the constant switching between the game and black screen in the opening isn't good to look at. So basically the film is just flat until Sage Francis's Waterline over the closing credits.

The acting is good though. Edward Norton and Colin Farrell both give a strong performance. But I have to say that Farrell sounds a bit Irish here and there, and he wasn't the right guy to play the tough cop - come on, Farrell willing to burn a baby for information is the less credible thing on this planet. Noah Emmerich and Jon Voight do a good job.