‘Pride and Glory’ Tries Nothing, Does Nothing

[Ozymandias]

This is a movie that not only fails as a cop drama, but also as a venture into storytelling. Its problem: the story isn’t worth being told, and is nearly non-existent. The commercial does everything this movie does, giving you a long, dull story about some corrupt cops while wasting the talents of acting greats like Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, and Jon Voight. Yes, even an awesome cast that rarely misfires can’t save this one, no matter how hard they try. There’s no problem with their performances, but what they’re saying is boring and continuously feels like filler information, as if the two hour run time was lacking. You know from the beginning, and they make no attempt to hide, who the corrupt cops are, and exactly what you expect to happen, happens. It’s as if they came up with a premise and forgot to put a story into it. As far as visuals, it is often blurry and occasionally shaky with the whole thing shot at eye-level with the actors, putting you right into the lengthy and tedious scenes. You find yourself caring little about what happens and the fate of the characters and more about what time it is. The film is really just a terrible, occasionally ultra-violent take on something formulaic to the point that it redefines the word. It’s so formulaic that it’s almost un-formulaic, if you can even begin to understand what I mean. The idea is so recycled that you expect some radical twist to take place, and soon realize its not coming. Many elongated scenes are unnecessary to the plot and the director seems to pride himself on showing, over and over and over again, a crowd of people getting angry, just in case we missed it the first five times. The film is shot in a dark style where you begin to wonder if anyone is ever going to turn on some lights. Any lines that threaten to change the direction of the film, or really take an in-depth look at the characters can be seen in the trailer, and are quickly bogged down. The director seems to think that with a great cast and his vision he can take the most basic of outlines, just go through the motions, and he’ll have something good. This is of course, not the case, and I’m saddened to see the always excellent Ed Norton take part in such a pointless project. Unless you like paying money to stare at your watch, don’t give this one a chance. Even die hard Norton fans should avoid this one. By no means can I constitute seeing this dark and dim bore-fest.