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| Orion Pictures | Release Date: August 21, 1981 |
Starring:
Bob Balaban, Carmine Caridi, Don Billett, Jerry Orbach, Kenny Marino, Norman Parker, Paul Roebling, Richard Foronjy, Tony Page, Treat Williams
Summary:
A New York City narcotics detective (Treat Williams) reluctantly agrees to cooperate with a special commission investigating police corruption. However, he soon discovers that he's in over his head, and nobody can be trusted.
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The tough urban realism Lumet perfected in cop dramas like Serpico, Q&A, and Prince Of The City has been reflected in first-rate TV shows like Homicide: Life On The Street, The Wire, and The Shield. But those shows had multiple seasons to draw out the breadth of institutional corruption, while Lumet miraculously covers this territory in 167 minutes.
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Prince of the City is a very good movie and, like some of its characters, it wants to break your heart. Maybe it will. It is about the ways in which a corrupt modern city makes it almost impossible for a man to be true to the law, his ideals, and his friends, all at the same time. The movie has no answers. Only horrible alternatives.
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Williams is only adequate, but nearly everyone else here is great, including Jerry Orbach (Ciello mentor) and Bob Balaban (hardball Justice Department creep). [25 May 2007, p.4E]
Williams acts all over the place, yet the movie - 2 hours and 47 minutes of documentary seriousness - is so poorly structured that you keep wondering what's going on and why he has agreed to inform on his friends...Things don't begin to come together until you're heading into the third hour.
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