Pride and Glory Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Pride and Glory Blu-ray Movie Review

Can Norton and Farrell save a predictable genre pic?

It seems you can't go to the videostore today without finding three or four corrupt-cop flicks sitting on the new release shelves. I suppose modern filmmakers would have us believe that everyone with a badge is a potential crime lord; a gun-toting madman just waiting for the opportunity to earn some extra cash on the side. The criminals they exploit are the victims, the innocents left in their wake are simple collateral damage, and their souls are too far gone to alter their ways. Ah well, at least a film like Pride and Glory makes an effort to examine the complicated personal lives of these all-too-familiar cinematic caricatures. Pulling back the curtain on a family filled with straight-laced and crooked cops, it does a fine job of exploring greed, guilt, insanity, loyalty, betrayal, and devotion in equal measure... so long as you're willing to ignore its at-times uneven and lazy screenplay.

When four New York City police officers are killed in a violent ambush, Chief of Detectives Francis Tierney (Jon Voight) asks his son and fellow officer, Ray (Edward Norton), to lead the subsequent investigation. Ray reluctantly takes the case in spite of the fact that the fallen cops had served under his older brother, Francis Jr. (Noah Emmerich), and alongside his brother-in-law, Jimmy (Colin Farrell). At first glance, it's an open and shut case -- a vicious drug dealer named Angel Tezo (Ramon Rodriguez) shot the officers as they attempted to raid one of his illegal operations. However, as Ray digs into the facts and finds several discrepancies between the accounts given by Jimmy's crew (John Ortiz, Shea Whigham, and Frank Grillo), he realizes his brother and brother-in-law may have been involved with the tragedy at some level. As he tracks down witnesses and uncovers clues, the case forces his family to choose between their loyalties to one another, their loyalties to the department, and their loyalties to the truth.

Pride and Glory arrived to a flurry of damning critical reviews that labeled the film as cliche, predictable, and more of the same. And while each of those accusations are true to an extent, the quality of the performances and the nuanced portrait writer/director Gavin O'Connor (Miracle, Tumbleweeds) paints of the Tierney family goes a long way toward making up for any such shortcomings. Norton, Farrell, Emmerich, and Voight chew up each scene and spit it out, mining their roles with effortless control while revealing a dark and seedy unspoken history between each member of their clan. Scenes between the young Tierney officers are intense and authentic. The dialogue may not be the best co-writer Joe Carnahan has penned, but it's elevated by the talent of each actor. Moreover, the actresses featured in the film -- Jennifer Ehle (playing Francis Jr's terminally-ill wife), Lake Bell (as Jimmy's suspicious wife and the Tierney's only daughter), Carmen Ejogo (as Ray's weary ex-wife), and Leslie Denniston (as the boys' faithful but knowing mother) -- that hold the film together and give the scenes that take place at their respective homes resonance and credibility. Sure, they only pop up for minutes at a time, but they give the male characters legitimate anchor points that define their every decision and motivation. In fact, anyone who wants to shrug off the film as entirely cumbersome or cliche need only refer to the heartbreaking scenes between Ehle and Emmerich to see exactly why this familial cop-drama is a substantial step above the average junk littering the genre.

Simmering performances and unexpected subplots aside, Carnahan has certainly turned out better scripts than the one he helped create for Pride and Glory. Narc was a brooding surprise from beginning to end and Ticker was an underrated thrill... even an over-plotted actioner like Smokin' Aces boasted endless wit and a flair for the unexpected. By comparison, Pride and Glory feels rather dry and tedious; a poor man's version of The Shield with a young hothead clumsily stepping into Vic Mackey's shoes. We're shown that Jimmy is volatile because he uses an iron to threaten a man's baby, not because we feel it exuding from his words. We're told that Norton has a hidden past through heavy-handed, expositional dialogue, not by a meticulously revealed backstory. Worse still, we know from the beginning that Francis Jr. and Jimmy are three shades of gray -- we don't discover this information with Ray, but long before Ray, making his search seem redundant and his inquiries tiresome. It doesn't help that the third act is full of contrived chaos. We're to believe that a key brotherly pact, a race riot, an officer's death, a crucial bar fight, another officer's decent into madness, a fulfilled vendetta (with a crowbar no less), and the culmination of the entire story occur within an hour's time frame. Rather convenient if you ask me.

Pride and Glory is a tough flick to rate. On one hand, I really enjoyed the actors' performances and found myself immersed in the Tierney's personal lives. However, I also was constantly aware of where the story was going, how it was going to get there, and how everything would end. Depending on your own personal tastes, I can easily see one person falling in love with the film and the next despising its every line and development. I for one thought it was decent in spite of its flaws; a Carnahan anomaly that didn't have the climactic resonance or emotional conclusion it so desperately needed. Even so, the film deserves a chance and may just find more fans than I anticipate. At the very least, it's worth a try.

Pride and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The moment Pride and Joy began peddling its high-def wares on my screen, I had several distinct flashbacks to watching Warner's own Blu-ray edition of Michael Clayton. O'Connor's palette offers up vivid primaries at times (particularly when the cameras visit the Tierney abode), but the vast majority of colors have been exorcised from the print. Steely blues, pale skintones, and inky (albeit occasionally faulty) blacks dominate the image to great effect, producing a three-dimensional picture with a convincing level of depth. Likewise, a noticeable veneer of grain is an integral part of the experience, but rarely overwhelms the cinematography or robs foreground elements of their finest textures. Detail is a bit inconsistent -- most shots are sharp and well defined, while others are soft and shaky -- but I would attribute each instance to the film's source rather than its technical transfer (no matter what flaws our beloved bitrate junkies may accuse this single-layer disc of producing). To its credit, long shots are shockingly crisp, noise is kept to a minimum, DNR is nowhere to be found, and I didn't catch sight of any significant edge enhancement.

Unfortunately, crush is a frequent issue, delineation is hit-or-miss, faint macroblocking occasionally appears in the shadows, and low-lit interiors are plagued by problematic visual discrepancies. Granted, most of the transfer's flaws are easy to ignore since O'Connor clearly had no desire to make an attractive film, but they also don't allow the disc to stand out as anything more than a noteworthy upgrade from its murky DVD counterpart. I'm sure fans will defend every frame as being faithful to the director's intention and I can't say they'd be wrong. Pride and Glory looks pretty good considering its filmmakers' aesthetic choices... I just doubt it will stir up nearly as much praise as other transfers debuting this month.

Pride and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pride and Glory features a confident and reliable Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track that captures the lively atmosphere of busy city streets, enhances the heft of its soundscape with sturdy LFE support, and manages to keep the listener immersed even during the quietest scenes. While the film itself is a fairly front-heavy affair populated with hushed conversations and tense exchanges, the rear speakers produce believable acoustics and involving ambience. Better still, when violence explodes on the screen, the entire soundfield is there to meet it. Precise directionality allows shouts to erupt from every direction, crystal clear pans deliver whizzing bullets from one channel to the next, and refined fidelity keeps the nicely prioritized dialogue crisp and clean. Even footfalls during chase scenes and the hum of florescent lights in an interrogation room have their fitting place in the mix. The third act may nab most of the sound designers' attention, but the rest of the film sounds considerably better than I expected.

If I'm prepared to furrow my brow at anything it's the fact that a few sound effects are suddenly and abruptly left to the imagination. When O'Connor's camera focuses in on a character, background elements sometimes jarringly disappear from the soundfield. It's not a common problem, but I did notice it on a few occasions during Ray's initial investigation, once in the midst of a sudden convenience store gunfight, and several times during the chaotic third act. Perhaps the sound designers were trying to emulate the main character's panic or thoughtfulness in each scenario, but it drew my attention away from the film too often to escape a mention. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly not as bad as a critical paragraph of this size might suggest, but rather a minor mishap in an otherwise noteworthy lossless presentation.

Pride and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Like its Special Edition DVD counterpart, the Blu-ray release of Pride and Glory only includes one extra: a 67-minute documentary that digs into the early stages of the project, the development of the script, and almost every aspect of the production. Shot using a candid, fly-on-the-wall style and presented in standard definition, Source of Pride offers dozens of interviews, extensive glimpses behind the scenes, and a particular focus on the amount of work that went into making the film feel authentic and realistic. It's arguably more engaging than the film itself and I was thoroughly entertained by every minute. Whether you love or hate Pride and Glory, I would strongly suggest giving this elaborate documentary a spin.

Pride and Glory Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Pride and Glory is a solid entry in the overcrowded corrupt-cop scene that focuses on the personal lives of its protagonists and crafts some startling conflicts for them to overcome. Its script is predictable and its dialogue isn't as strong as its performances, but it's still worth watching as far as I'm concerned. The Blu-ray edition is also worth a look. It features a faithful (albeit slightly underwhelming) video transfer, a respectable TrueHD audio track, and an engaging documentary that I thought was better than the film itself. Give it a try and see what you think.