Pride and Glory
Rated: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Directed by: Gavin O'Connor
Starring:
Edward Norton - Ray Tierney
Colin Farrell - Jimmy Egan
Noah Emmerich - Francis Tierney, Jr.
Jon Voight - Francis Tierney, Sr.
An hour into Pride and Glory and it's not difficult to see why New Line pushed the film back repeatedly. Just as I was considering asking for a rain check so I could leave and push back the remainder of the film till a later date (that day being about five years in the future at about two in the morning where I find myself channel surfing before stopping on TNT and wondering how the film ended before determining that I didn't care five years ago and as the head of a multi-national corporation specializing in the manufacturing of cars that run on the impoverished—also known as "rickshaws"—I don't care now and never will), magic happened. There's no reason to see Pride and Glory so I'll spoil the glorious moment that's worth seeing and will hopefully end up on YouTube in the near future: Colin Farrell almost irons a baby.
Why would Colin Farrell almost iron an infant? Well, you see, he's a corrupt cop. He's Vic Mackey if Mackey were totally uninteresting, uncharismatic, and unconvincing as a person existing in the real world. Farrell is Jimmy Egan and he's married into the cop family of the Tierneys with their physically and emotionally scarred son Raymond (Edward Norton) and their compromised and struggling son Francis (Noah Emmerich). The film wants to play into a notion of family loyalty vs. the honor and duty of the law as Raymond and Francis end up investigating the murder of four cops which leads back to Jimmy. But the relationship between these men feels purely coincidental. Jimmy isn't a truly a brother to Raymond and Francis but merely an acquaintance. It's an absence of emotion that borders on the bizarre since Jimmy and Francis should have a close relationship seeing as Jimmy is a cop at the precinct run by Francis. Instead, we get a laughable climactic fist-fight between Jimmy and Raymond who have had maybe ten lines of dialogue between them for the entire film.
Raymond, Jimmy, and Francis are all shells of characters that are constantly undermined by a plot with no momentum and even less energy. Raymond is looking for redemption, Francis is looking to do what's right without sacrificing his career, and Jimmy's just in it for the money. I know who these characters are and what they want but I never once found myself able to care because nothing in Pride and Glory flows naturally. It feels more like a half-assed network cop drama without commercials and destined for cancellation. The character arcs intersect awkwardly and their subplots feel like distractions rather than shading. It's all very safe, familiar, and scared to tread ground that a show like Hill Street Blues walked fearlessly almost thirty years ago. There's nothing in Pride and Glory that you haven't seen done before and done better.
Except when Colin Farrell almost irons a baby. In trying to track down the lead which could tie him to the murders, Farrell threatens to iron a baby in order to make its parents cough up some information on the lead's whereabouts. It's horribly out of place and in no way convincing but I've never seen a film where a character threatened to iron a baby. In a film with Edward Norton, Noah Emmerich, and even Colin Farrell who impressed me earlier this year with In Bruges, I wish there was something else to acclaim but the awkwardness of almost ironing an infant was the only memorable moment of this drab, unimaginative, and clumsy police drama.
Words by
Matt Goldberg
10.23.08