Pride and Glory: Movie Review

Released today, this police/crime drama genre is set around the festive season, however if you expect this to be some jolly, sweet and sugar coated story with a happy ending, this isn't what you're looking for.

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Edward Norton stars as Ray Tierney, a New York City police officer who hails from a generation of police officers. His brother, father and his in-law all part of the precinct. Troubled by a case from the past,where he was forced to lie about the truth of events which occurred to protect members of the precinct, Ray ( edward norton ) has since left the task force and worked in the missing person department but is forced to return upon request by his father when four police officers were murdered in cold blood at one crime scene.

And it is in this investigation that he finds that the seeds of corruption were from the very precinct he worked in, linking his brother and in -law to be part of it. And Ray is forced to choose between choosing to protect family, or the values he sworn to keep upon being a police officer.

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From the beginning of the film till its every end, this film screams out the bleak, harsh, cold and cruel gritty feel. Even the families of the main characters which were used as ways to show faucets of each character provided little reprieve from the agony, fear, bleakness that each character was in. And it somewhat gave one the feeling and expectation for a somewhat bleak and or tragic end.

Whilst this film does not base itself on action or fast paced drama, it lies on its character development and conversation between characters to let the audience get to know the big picture and story. However, it also it the flaw of the film as much of the backstory and history of characters can only be seen through what little dialogue given.

While Edward Norton did well to portray a troubled cop trying to choose between family or the values he sought to protect and uphold, Colin Farrell, too did shine in his portrayal of a vicious, vengeful and dangerous corrupt police officer. But still it wasn't enough to hold the film up together in my opinion.

The struggle within the characters' beliefs on the importance of family and values was something that was commendable as this point of view varied with most other of the same genre, though it could have been done in much more depth ( wasn't explored much ), as it was the main emphasis of the whole film.


This movie is worth a watch IF you dig police dramas/ crime dramas. It isn't unwatchable trash neither was it remarkably good either, somewhat floating on the margin. It just somewhat fell below my expectations, which is attributed to its lack of depth and narration to fully feel and delve into the character's world. ( the script almost could pull it off at one point but then they lost it...) - Jimmy's ( Colin Farrell) betrayal scene, Ray's Internal Affairs confession scene, End scene at Jimmy's death. I felt that had they placed more emphasis or narrated it better, this movie could, almost could...get a better rating.


An example of a film of a similiar genre would be street kings, though the acting wasn't particularly good, KEANU'S dead piece of driftwood expression ( sorry ladies ) didn't help either, but the resounding punch in the face and shock came towards the end which showed a pretty good script, and it did help the film move along and gave audiences much afterthought, thanks to its dramatic end. ( i would give street kings a 3.5 out of 5 )


But Pride and Glory fell short of what i expected and hoped for.

i'd give it a 3 out of 5, based on the stormtrooper effect's scale of awesomeness. And it is a miss instead of a Hit for me, as i feel that they could've done this film so much better.

Flipsides
+ the gritty, dark, brooding, feel
+ Colin Farrell ( didn't expect that )
+ Edward Norton's portrayal of his struggle between family and values
- lack of depth to fully flesh the characters to pull audiences into their world
- bleak..bleak...bleak...we start to get the picture. shit just gets worse? anything new?
- police drama with corruption equation , we've seen this before.
- had alot of potential to begin with. director lost the magic halfway into the film.