It's a family affair

Nov 5 2008 Pierce Hunt, Surrey Herald

Director Gavin O'Connor may have managed to dodge a bullet with this effort, but only because a long, rambling script is ultimately rescued by an impressive cast who are left to flog this dead horse.

Brothers Ray (Edward Norton) and Francis Tierney Jr (Noah Emmerich) are following in their father's footsteps (Francis Sr, Jon Voight) of police enforcement in the NYPD. But unlike their father, former chief of police, the two siblings become entwined in a messy corruption cover-up.

After four officers are murdered, Ray discovers that the killings are part of a long line of dodgy dealings between drug dealers and members of the NYPD.

From Ray's findings, the overwhelming evidence of wrongdoings point to Francis and Ray's brother-in-law Jimmy (Colin Farrell), who along with the four deceased officers is under the command of Francis.

The doom and gloom continues with Jimmy and his gaggle of goons as they set about roughing up potential informants, more often than not with excessive force.

One of the most disturbing scenes highlights Jimmy's relentless appetite for violence. He bursts into a family Christmas dinner and begins beating his victim senseless, demanding information on a drug dealer. After the bleeding victim refuses to divulge the whereabouts of his friend, Jimmy punches the man's wife square in the face, knocking her to the ground. As she cowers, Jimmy picks up the baby the woman was holding and shouts to his moustached sidekick to call an ambulance and say that they have a disfigured baby on their hands. Jimmy places the crying baby on the ironing board and begins to lower a steaming-hot iron towards the infant's face.

Only then does the name and location of the wanted man fall from the wounded man's mouth.

Jimmy's undefeatable belief soon gets the better of him as Ray catches him in another scenario, dispensing vigilante justice, rather than enforcing the law. And Ray is determined

Jimmy should made accountable for the path he has chosen, throwing the force into disrepute.

The plot is hardly reinventing the wheel, and the script is littered with clichés. But having Colin Farrell bare-knuckle boxing - in an Irish bar with traditional Irish music blearing from the jukebox - against a weedy-looking Edward Norton was perhaps a scene the writers could have steered clear of.

Clocking up more than two hours, Pride and Glory takes its time getting to the point, but once it's reached, you've given up caring. The story unfolds at such an irritatingly slow pace, you wish justice had been served 30 minutes earlier.

 5/10