Pride and Glory (2008) – on rental. There aren’t a lot of recent multi-generational cop dramas in entertainment, and even less so when in movies with their shorter running lengths. With their necessarily larger cast of characters, plots and subplots and time to establish inter-character relationships, this sort of theme seems more suited for a TV series than a movie.
So, Pride and Glory has its work cut out from the get go. How do you fit a drama involving two generations of law enforcement dramas into its 130 minute length? To its credit, the film has a narrative coherence: the story itself about alright. The story starts with a short scene establishing the major players with a favorite American past-time – a football game. There’s the old daddy and retired Police Chief played by Jon Voight, two brothers: Edward Norton and Noah Emmerich, and their brother-in-law is Colin Farrell, all three of the latter who are still serving officers.
Then the film gets into motion when four cops from the New York PD are killed in what seems to be a drug bust. As the story turns, there’s more than meets the eye. The four cops weren’t the cleanest and were actually involved in a operation on their own to earn some side-income. And as the story develops, the family of police officers all become involved and end up being on three sides of the emerging conflict: two on extreme ends, and one right in the middle.
But a lot of things also get the short stick, or just seem incomplete and left hanging. There’s a subplot involving a wife who’s dying of cancer (played by Pride & Prejudice’s Jennifer Erle), and another wife who’s estranged from her husband. Neither subplots get resolved by the film’s end. But then again, the women roles in Pride and Glory seem more filler than substance.
The film is, unusually, also more a drama than a thriller. It’s pretty talky. The few moments where violence breaks out are short, but pretty brutal. There’s a scene where Farrell – who plays Sgt Eagan threatens to mutilate a baby to force a crook to give up where his boss is hiding. Pretty scary and not for everyone.
Not perfect, but still watchable for those of us who like manly character dramas with a lot of conflict.
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