Whatever points "Pride and Glory" was trying to make have been buried beneath layers of clumsy, good-vs.-bad posturings and peppered with R-rated language that's clearly supposed to remind us of films like "The Departed."
Unfortunately, all that does is remind us how much better Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning criminals-and-equally-crooked-cops thriller was than this mess.
And the funny thing is, this film is also a lot like last year's "We Own the Night" in that regard, even though the two films were actually shot around the same time. ("Pride and Glory" has been sitting on the studio shelves, unreleased, for quite some time.)
But perhaps the test of the movie's awfulness is that even an extremely talented cast can't redeem it. Edward Norton stars as Ray Tierney, a once-promising detective who's now wasting his time on missing-persons cases.
However, his high-ranking police official father, Francis Tierney Sr. (Jon Voight), has an important assignment for him. He's asked Ray to join a task force looking into the shooting deaths of four of their fellow NYPD officers.
The case isn't as neat-and-clean as everyone would prefer, though. Ray's corrupt cop brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell), appears to have been involved, and there are some questions about how much his brother, Francis Jr. (Noah Emmerich), knew about Jimmy's off-duty activities.
Obviously, this is pretty familiar stuff, though it's told with real nastiness and maliciousness. A torture scene even shows a child being imperiled with a hot clothes iron.
That's to be expected from "Smokin' Aces" filmmaker Joe Carnahan, who helped write the screenplay. But from co-screenwriter/director Gavin O'Connor ("Miracle") it's an unpleasant shock.
Also, the actors seem unimpressed with this material. The sole bright spot is Jennifer Ehle, who's quite good in a thankless role as a critically ill wife.
"Pride and Glory" is rated R and contains strong sexual language (profanity and crude slang terms), strong and sometimes disturbing violent action and imagery (shootings, beatings, and violence against women and children), some graphic blood and gore, scenes depicting torture and interrogation, drug content and references (methamphetamines, as well as prescription medicines), racial slurs and derogatory language, some brief sexual contact and brief female nudity. Running time: 130 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com