In a Nutshell

Plot

Straight as an Arrow

Twisty

Sound Quality

Easy to Hear

Incomprehensible

Who's That?

Few Main Characters

Lots

Naughty Words

Mild

Foul

Naked people

None

Lots

Violence

Tame

Bloody

There is no pride and there is no glory among the police officers of the fictitious 31^st precinct in New York City.It’s Christmas time in the Big Apple and things are not merry. Four cops are killed during a drug bust and the Chief Inspector in charge, Francis Tierney (Jon Voight), asks his son, Detective Raymond Tierney (Edward Norton) to lead  the investigation.

Ray is hesitant: the murdered police officers are under the command of his brother, Frannie (Noah Emmerich), Commander of the Precinct; his brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan, (Colin Farrell) is a sergeant in the same command.  But his father pulls out all the stops and Ray reluctantly accepts the assignment.  What follows between Christmas and New Year’s is a continual blood bath as Ray, and everyone else, tracks down the drug dealer behind the murders, Angel Tezo (Ramon Rodriguez), and tries to get to him first.  Surprise! Some of the cops are dirty, and guess who they are?

So the dilemma begins, which pits brother against brother, family against family and ultimately cop against cop.

We learn that Ray dutifully played the game eight years ago when he did what his father asked him to.  He upheld the police ethic to protect their own and lied to a grand jury to save a fellow police officer.  This move cost him his marriage and he’s steered clear of such dilemmas since by burying himself at the Missing Persons Desk.  Now he’s right back where he did not want to be.  If he does the right thing and exposes the crooked cops under his brother’s command, he threatens to bring down the house of Tierney.

While Ray struggles with his conscience, there is a steady stream of killings, beatings, and riots in New York.   Hello — this is not the New York we’re familiar with and we have to ask ourselves when this movie is supposed to take place?! It has the feel of New York in the 70’s and not today’s safer city. Unless we’re living in a bubble…?

All this movie offers is a tired, familiar story that’s been told many times over and much more powerfully (Mystic River, the Departed). The actors are all very capable but are given nothing to do.  In fact, actresses Jennifer Ehle, Lake Bell, Carmen Ejogo and Leslie Denniston could just as well have been left out of the movie without jeopardizing the plot one bit.  Is there something we’re supposed to be learning here?  If so I think we just flunked this course!