Reviewed by Justin Bateman
Stars Colin Farrell, Edward Norton, Jon Voight, Noah Emmerich, Jennifer Ehle,
John Ortiz, Frank Grillo, Shea Whigham, Lake Bell | Written by Gavin O’Connor & Joe Carnahan
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 130 minutes | Directed by Gavin O’Connor
When Screenjabber reviewer Craig McPherson saw Pride and Glory last year, he wasn’t impressed. Having missed it, I was interested to see it for myself, not least because Edward Norton is one of my favourite actors.
The story centres on the aftermath of a drugs raid in which several New York City cops are killed. Ray Tierney (Norton) is the detective in charge in investigating what happened and it’s not long before we discover that Jimmy Egan (Farrell), his brother-in-law is involved in corruption. They both set about trying to find the cop killer, albeit for slightly different reasons, with predictably violent consequences.
Pride and Glory certainly doesn’t break any new ground and isn’t a patch on Training Day, for example. There’s a lot of shouting, swearing and macho posturing, and it’s too long but overall it’s perfectly watchable and there’s enough going on to keep things interesting. The cast is great with Voight and Emmerich especially providing solid support for Norton and Farrell who do a fine job of keeping the characters believable. It also has a gritty, grimy quality to it which lends it a certain verisimilitude missing from a lot of TV cop dramas.
EXTRAS *** ‘Source of Pride: The Making of ‘Pride and Glory’. A 67 minute documentary following the entire, often painful, shoot. A lot of it is director O’Connor with his head in his hands but there are also some interesting insights into the filmmaking process and interviews with some of the cast, Norton most prominent among them. Plus ‘Future releases’, five trailers for other films you might not otherwise have heard of. Although possibly for good reason.