Pride and Glory (DVD)

With a cast as talented as this film has, I'm surprised to have to rate it two stars. The acting is superb. So much so it's hard to pick a standout performance. Perhaps Edward Norton's turn as a cop here is the deepest hero. But Colin Farrell turns in a fantastic performance also. Each character has some angst and poignancy to deliver, even the smaller characters were sharp. And Jon Voight as the father was moving, and his oldest son played by Noah Emmerich in perhaps his best screen appearance. But the story and film itself I found to be too dark and depressing and frankly, overly-violent. And the violence wasn't always necessary. it just made the film seem more plodding, low frequency and without anything uplifting to look forward to. It was so uninspiring that I kept looking at my watch and wondering when it was going to end. Further proof if how hard it was to watch was the pounding migraine I had immediately afterward. If you want to be uplifted, skip this one. If you like depressing, gritty cop flicks, this is for you.

First let me say that I was a "Gal Friday" in the early 1980s at the Boulder Police Dept, Detective Division. I helped put together cases for the DA on rapes, homicides & other crimes. I sat up all night on look-outs, trying to track a suspect. One murder was especially horrific, the killing of a little boy by his mother's live-in lover. All the detectives were weeping over his death. The mother had lied & said she'd sold the boy & that was the weak hope.I had to guard this woman after she had confessed about her son's murder. There were other killings & so I am not a delicate little flower of a woman sitting behind protective doors. However, this film was too gruesome for me.These are all some of the better actors around, men & women. The story line is strong--a family of cops in a harsh part of NYC. One brother's (Franny's) team is ambushed & slaughtered, along with drug dealers.The father (played by Jon Voight) insists that his son (Edward Norton) lead a task force to investigate the ambush killings. Norton's character (Ray) is reluctant, due to an unrelated event that got him skittish but he does as his father says. There are some family dinner scenes with Voight as the tipsy father, proud of his sons (but saying nothing about his son-in-law). You meet the wives in these kinds of scenes.Colin Farrell plays Jimmy, who is married to Franny's & Ray's sister. He is a football hero, adores his wife & kids but we find out he has a terribly sinister side. He is the leader of a group of cops gone Very bad. They extort money from shop owners in what seems to be Spanish Harlem. At one point, Jimmy says to Ray "We F***ing make $65,000/year while these scumbags are wipin' their asses on that every week!" Money is a strong motive for going bad but also the daily grime of drug crimes, gang killings & constant threat of death.One of Jimmy's bad cop pals "gets religion" & feels horrible about the ambush. He has been fired by Franny who has found out that Sandy called to warn his old neighborhood pal (a gang member) about the bust which led to the ambush at the beginning of the film.So Sandy calls a reporter, gives him the whole story & then shoots himself in the reporter's car (he puts a sheet over his head first but it is still horribly bloody & shocking). I cared about Sandy & his death was awful. He was a sympathetic character.Jimmy & his cohorts blast into a poor family's apartment & terrorize them. They beat the husband/father mercilessly. Jimmy grabs an infant & holds a hot iron right up to its face (yes, I know, all done with smoke & mirrors & Colin Farrell, who has two sons would never do that in real life---but it was so realistic & horrific, I HATED these guys). They finally get the location of the gang lord they are searching for, in order to kill him before Ray or anyone else finds out about their involvement in the ambush killings & other bad behavior.Ray is beginning to get a vibe about Jimmy's involvement in very bad goings-on & as they are all searching for a gang lord (Tezo) who was involved in the ambush, Ray comes upon Jimmy & his gang of bad cops torturing Tezo. This scene is in semi-darkness but it is still so gruesome, it made me sick.I am not a wimp. I loved Scorcese's "Gangs of NY." The characters in that film had such depth that the violence, though intense, was offset by the story, the character development (& revelations as to what made them who they were). But Pride & Glory, though well acted, didn't have enough character revelation (except for Sandy) to balance out the goriness & grime. Even with Colin Farrell's deep talent, the scene of him staring at photos of his family in the bar before Ray arrests him isn't enough to make us care about this thug.Jimmy meets a horrible end during a huge riot caused when two of Jimmy's bad cops get caught in a shop one of them has gone to raid again. The citizens have had enough of their robbing, killing, beating. Even though he was a bad cop, throughouly corrupt, being beaten to death was hardly what I'd have wished for him. Beaten up, yes. Jailed for life, yes. The killing is "offstage" as they say in the theatre (a group surrounds him & the beating is heard rather than seen---but imagination tells a horrific story).The end shows Ray, Franny & their father going up the marble stairs of a justice building, obviously to tell all. Justice has one eye closed.My husband & I are afficianadoes of Colin Farrell's acting, since he appeared in a movie as Jesse James & had recurring roles in "Ballykissangel." But I wish I hadn't seen him in this role. As I said, great acting. Just cannot get some of the brutal images (like the torture scene) out of my head.

This movie was really bad. I stopped watching after about the sixth scene. Over dramatization- but I think if it wasn’t for Ed Norton wouldn’t have made it passed fifth scene. He is cool - calm and you are interested to see him but it is hard to follow through a maze of suspense with bad acting. The plot is okay but it has been done again and again, it looses it’s appeal when you are watching it in 2020!

This movie was accidentally ordered by my 16 month old grandson while he was playing with the remote. We decided we might as well watch it since I was paying. Turned out it was a darn good movie. Good choice little guy.

No, not a novel storyline but fine acting, and still well-written, make this a heartbreaking suspenseful drama of a family coming apart at the seams when it all starts to go sideways -- both the larger family of law enforcement and the more intimate family of father and sons. I think Colin Farrell gives another great performance, intensity and heat come through the screen, but I like the actor playing the family's brother, Francis under whose watch most of the heinous acts of corruption occur, he has the most understated but powerful role in some ways, if for no other reason he really goes through more stages of painful reasoning and reckoning. Not the movie you want if you're looking for Secretariat.

I enjoyed this movie, only seen it once on TV. Could not remember the name of the movie, so I looked up a list of movies that one of the actors played and found it.

Can't play on Blue Ray or other standard DVD players because of the #2 coding not for USA electronics.

Would have gotten an excellent but it was a marathon of the f word which ruined it for me.

Apart from the performance of Edward Norton, I found this a most obnoxious and annoying film. I can swear as much as anyone at times but for the whole script of the film to be totally dominated by it is in no way can be viewed by anyone of intelligence to make up a good film.

Great dvd

good

Fast delivery, product as described - Happy customer!

This is a good crime/cop drama, and NOT basedon a so-called, "true story", although it does feellike a real life drama, but there you go, fiction isbetter at telling a truth...