Although Pride and Glory feels very formulaic at times, the film is still a solid cop flick and features some strong performances from its cast.
The film was directed by Gavin O'Connor from a screenplay he wrote with Joe Carnahan (Smokin' Aces and Narc). It stars Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Noah Emmerich, Jennifer Ehle, John Ortiz, and Lake Bell.
At its core, Pride and Glory is simply the story about a family of Irish cops and how they interact with each other as a crisis rises that could destroy their careers.
It kicks off with a departmental football game intercut with a drug bust gone bad. A group of cops are killed during the raid, and we quickly learn they belonged to a team led by Jimmy Eagan (Farrell) who operates out of a police house led by Francis Tierney, Jr. (Emmerich) – who also happens to be Eagan’s brother-in-law.
A special task force is put together to find the cop shooters and Francis Tierney, Sr. (Voight) thinks it is time for Ray Tierney (Norton) to return to the streets.
Ray was a street cop, and a rising star in the department, but a bad shooting had caused him to move to another section of law enforcement. He reluctantly agrees to be part of the investigation, but becomes an outsider again when he discovers a group of dirty cops in his brother’s police house that are led by his brother-in-law.
The movie builds its tension from the start of the credits, and explodes in a mixture of race riots, gun fights, and a classic bar fight between Norton and Farrell. Along the way, we get a mixture of family dynamics (sons trying to please their father and protect each other no matter the cost), and a look at life outside of the job (some of the film’s best scenes involve Emmerich and Ehle dealing with a cancer storyline).
Everyone in this film is solid and does an extremely good job at being believable as cops, and showing the hardships that come with the job. By far, the most emotional performances come from Emmerich and Ehle. As the movie went along, I was more interested in their storyline than with any of the other family plots. Emmerich is extremely good as a man just trying to hold on as a father, a cop and a husband as his wife is slowly dying.
Norton is great in the movie as a man torn between doing what he thinks is right and what he thinks is best for his family. He also shows the damages that come with the job through his own broken marriage that he is trying to put back together.
Farrell and Voight are also good in the film, but have a few hit or miss moments. Voight’s character runs the family, and is the standard by which the sons measure themselves as cops. At the same time, you can see chinks in his armor through his alcoholism.
Farrell is great as a dirty cop willing to go as far as it takes to protect his job, and get his money (including a disturbing scene involving a baby). When the film’s ending comes, you feel a bit sorry for him, but not much.
At the same time, he tends to overact a tad too much, and wanders into the performances from a few of his bad films (such as his Bullseye character from Daredevil). He doesn’t ruin the movie or the character, but needed to be pulled in a bit more by the director.
Pride and Glory looks great on Blu-ray and O'Connor seems to know how to capture the looks and feel of the street. Everything in the film feels real, and serves the purpose of building the film’s tension to a boiling point.
I really enjoyed the movie, but it does have some faults. At times, the film’s story gets away from itself, parts of it feel forced, and there is a formulaic pattern that pretty much hangs on every aspect of the story. From the very start, we know where the film is going and what the ending is going to be like. It never has any surprises or curves that you don’t see coming.
A lot of the film reminded me of James Gray’s We Own the Night – which seemed to deal with a similar storyline of a family of cops. Both films seemed to have a gritty look at the life of a cop, and followed family issues causing trouble at the job and at home.
Pride and Glory comes with a 67 minute long “making of” documentary that takes you into the movie and the world where it was set. The feature is extremely interesting, but might be a bit much for those who just quasi-liked the movie.
Despite seeming to follow the paths of past cop films, Pride and Glory is a good movie, and will keep your interest thanks to the film’s performances of its stars. It is a familiar story, but if you are a fan of the genre you will like the film.
Pride and Glory [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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