Prince of the City

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]

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

An astonishing in-depth portrait of the interlocking worlds of police and hoodlum results, with no punches pulled and no easy solutions. Read full review

Divided into five parts, the film is the most ambitious, realistic, thorough and scrupulous feature yet released by a major studio on the subject of cops and corruption...As portrayed electrifyingly - sometimes a little too electrifyingly - by Williams, Ciello's reasons for becoming a stoolie are as complex as his reasons for becoming a cop. [29 Aug 1981]

The film is a concentrated, unrelievedly serious and cerebrally involving entry, exhaustively detailing the true-life saga of a Gotham detective who turned Justice Dept informer to eke out widespread corruption in his special investigating unit during the 1960s. Read full review

A heavyweight contender unafraid to take on some of the most harrowing moral and social dilemmas of the day... Prince of the City takes us into the jungle and into the halls of justice, and forces us to see how precarious the line between them is. It's a true horror story. [24 Aug 1981, p.67]

What remains is nearly three hours of disorientation and paranoia, accented by Method-y monologue outbursts that quickly disappear into a vacuum of overwhelming loneliness. Read full review

Brilliant, but forgotten eighties cop epic with an astounding central turn from Williams. Read full review

Prince of the City begins with the strength and confidence of a great film, and ends merely as a good one. The achievement isn't what it first promises to be, but it's exciting and impressive all the same. Read full review

Williams gives a fine performance, the rest of the cast is also excellent, and director Sidney Lumet's eye for detail is sure throughout this authentic look at the dirtier side of police work. Read full review

Though it periodically loses its way among cardboard characters and stereotyped scenes, it deserves hefty credit for attempting more than the average movie dreams of accomplishing. [13 Aug 1981, p.18]

This movie swims freely in the moral ambiguities Lumet seems to thrive on. Read full review

The infuriatingly slow pace proves a point, but it makes for a gritty-eyed viewer with mashed potatoes for brains...It's a relief to escape the theater after this one, though it's good for several hours of discussion over dinner. It's not entertaining, but it does fall into the should-see category. Pop a couple of Stress-Tabs before you go. [2 Oct 1981, p.17]

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.