Colin Farrell, Edward Norton, Jon Voight

A gritty and emotional portrait of the New York City Police Department, the film follows a multi-generational police family whose moral code is tested when one of two sons on the force investigates an...( read more  read more... ) incendiary case involving his older brother and brother-in-law. The case forces the family to choose between their loyalties to one another and their loyalties to the department.

Flixster Users

55% liked it

71,738 ratings

Critics

34% liked it

150 critics

R, 2 hrs. 5 min.

Directed by: Gavin O'Connor

Release Date: October 24, 2008

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DVD Release Date: January 27, 2009

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Flixster Reviews (3,051)


  • September 21, 2009
    Dark NY Cop drama about what??? Police corruption, intertwined with a family of cops. Good cast and performances but the ending was weak. Nothing too spectacular here because there are so many movies about corruption in law enforcement.
  • March 4, 2009
    A powerful and unforgettable movie. A very strong piece of film. A masterpice. A unique, gritty and great story of family and police corruption. It's The Godfather of cop films. Thrilling, compelling and breathtaking. An exciting and pulse-pounding thriller. It's gripping, intens...( read more)e, nail-biting and shocking with great twist and turns. A great script by Joe Caranahan and solidly directed by Director, Gavin O'Connor. Edward Norton is magnificent, one of his best performances of his career. Joining his classic roles in American History X, Fight Club, The Painted Veil and The Illusionist. Colin Farrell is excellent, giving a complex and enduring performance that will stand as one of his best. Jon Voight is brilliant. Noah Emmerich is teriffic. A hard-hitting and hard-edged drama. It grabs you and refuses to ever let go. A total powerhouse of a film. It's explosive and exhilerating. More powerful than Training Day and more gripping than We Own The Night.
  • March 2, 2009
    I think the acting made this movie what it is, I was expecting more from the story but i wasnt really expecting anything less then what it turned out 2 be. I loved Colin in this film I thought he was great. This movie jus fell short of being great but I thought it was really good...( read more), the drama in it was very well done. Noah Emmerich was a surprise 2 watch aswell.
  • March 1, 2009
    "Becoming a cop, the pledge we took to uphold something honest. We let it all rot from under us."

    Not to get too theoretical, and not to oversimplify, but in most cases genre pieces qualify for their genre by exhibiting or implying a certain amount of elements that are re...( read more)cognized as elements, or "forms," of the genre in question. Identifying these elements, sometimes called "tropes," is for film critics and especially fans often simply an act of intuition. There are also cases where a film carries so many tropes that they're unmistakably part of their genre and nothing else. By extension, it's possible to theorize that a film that carries more tropes than any other might be said to be the "most" of its genre.

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    On that basis, Pride and Glory ought to be recognized as the ultimate family-of-Irish-American-New York-cops-in-moral-quandary genre film. Except there's a giant difference between "done" and "done well," and the film manages to successfully pull off almost none of its elements, though pretty much each one evokes memories of better films where they were used with greater grace and less amateurish abandon. A loud, copying, and unconvincing film with no real point except its own bombast, its combined effect isn't just bad - it's actually a discredit to the genre to which it aspires.

    Edward Norton plays Ray Tierney, a NYPD detective laying low in the Missing Persons division because of a sketchily drawn episode two years in his past (The audience is never told exactly what.) When four detectives in the department's 31rst Precinct - captained by his brother Frances (Noah Emmerich) - are killed in an arrest gone awry, Ray's father (Jon Voight) demands Ray join the task force assigned to swiftly catch the drug dealer believed responsible. But the investigation, through a series of coincidences and scenes apparently intended to give the cast something to act about, quickly expands to include the family's brother-in-law Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell) and his three squadmates.

    What ensues is the kind of plot that's not so much a story as an amalgamation of other stories blended together without regard for structure. There's betrayal, and murder, and of course innocent people caught in the middle. But Gavin O'Connor's direction puts one scene right after the other with little in the way of mounting suspense: one thing happens and then another and another. The plotline is straightforward, even if the tension is thin. And with a 125-minute runtime, there's a lot of scenes, many of which mostly contain people staring laser beams into one another or swearing as if vulgarity was getting outlawed the next morning. Ray and Jimmy's final confrontation in a deserted Irish bar is laughably forced, as is Jimmy's death at the hands of an angry mob minutes later.

    One thin sliver of beauty arrives about halfway through, when Francis presents his dying wife with a Gaelic band promising "love eternal." It's a sweet scene, played expertly and without bathos by Emmerich and Jennifer Ehle, that detracts from the rote events happening elsewhere in the plot. In fact, coupled with a later scene of Francis defusing a hostage situation, you might wish the film was about Francis and starred Emmerich's perfectly-tuned performance, instead of Norton's and Farrell's faux macho histrionics. Emmerich has made a career of playing non-confrontational beta male types; his performance here is a revealing breath of fresh, unmannered air.

    As for the stars, Norton's performance is no more and no less than adequate to the task at hand. By this point in his career he's forged a definite screen persona, made from equal parts of his turns in American History X and Fight Club, and now he's beginning to stick by it. Farrell possibly took the part of Jimmy as an opportunity to play a bad guy; but why, then, is so much of his performance a weird, half-hearted Robert De Niro impression? Farrell has also become the kind of film star, it seems, that HAS to have a redemptive death, even when playing the heavy. It also doesn't help that at least one scene seems shunted into the script by O'Connor and co-writer Joe Carnahan in order to give Farrell more screen time. Voight, who should know something about difficult children himself, brings a definite weight to his scenes as the bewildered father, even if his dialogue is relegated to standard plot-facilitating exposition: "I want you on this task force!"; "He was always the thinker, always solving problems."

    I talked a lot at the start of this review about derivation and influence, and to close I'd like to recommend three films whose influence on Pride and Glory was palpable and immediately obvious. Watching any of these - or watching them all - is certain to be a more rewarding use of time. They are: Sidney Lumet's Serpico, John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 and Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil. I'm sure there's more, but these came to mind first. And though it's too contemporaneous to really act as an influence, James Gray's far superior We Own The Night used many of the same forms and the same influences to a more startling, virtuoso effect. I keep asking myself: why keep wasting time, money and talent doing the same stuff that's been done and re-done before? I've yet to to obtain a valid answer.
  • February 22, 2009
    Pride and Glory is your average bad cop flick. Disappointing film based upon the stellar cast... The actors worked hard with what they were given and throughout the film it is obvious the script was just bad. Kudos not only to the leads but the supporting characters and even t...( read more)he extras for trying diligently to make the film better. Without the cast, this film would tank big time for it's very poor script and bad direction. Three stars for the cast ....
  • November 21, 2009
    Great crime thriller about a family of cops in New York whose morales and loyality get pushed to the limit when it appears one of them could be involved in a fatal shooting that saw four of their own get killed. Tense, compelling and brilliantly acted. Colin Farrell is great in t...( read more)his, as usual, but then again, so is everyone else!
  • November 17, 2009
    This is what gives me faith in movies. Every actor in this was at the top of their game and the writing was so well done that even though you knew the twist, it was only the beginning. Edward Norton proves for the second time this year that he is one of the greatest actors of his...( read more) generation. He had so much history to his character and was able to display all of that without even saying a word. Colin Farrell was probably one of the most evil characters on screen(I don't wanna spoil it for you) and pulled it off magnificently. He made Matt Damon in The Departed look like Jimmy Stewart in It's a wonderful life. And John Voight, you've still got it.
  • November 10, 2009
    Hackneyed police drama with a cast that is far better than the material.
  • November 4, 2009
    "Verdad, honor, lealtad, o familia???...?
  • November 1, 2009
    Dirty cop movies never get old. With Edward "the great" Norton it gets even more rewarding.

Critic Reviews


November 7, 2008
Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

Pride and Glory is NYPD cop hokum, overcooked and undercharacterised. The time is out of joint, but in films such as this another joint is always to hand: ham. full review

October 24, 2008
Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com

It finds real pride and glory in its superb cast. full review

October 24, 2008
Claudia Puig, USA Today

Pride's only saving grace is Edward Norton, whose mere presence raises the level of a film several notches. But it's unclear why he lately has chosen such worn-out material. full review

October 24, 2008
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Pride and Glory is more than just lousy; it's an amalgam of every bad tendency of the current cinema, stitched together into a single 125-minute monstrosity of a cop movie. full review

October 24, 2008
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Pride and Glory, directed by Gavin O'Connor, plods across familiar ground. It's yet another movie about the fraternal disorder of the police. full review

October 24, 2008
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

A gritty thriller in the bloodline of Sidney Lumet's compelling New York City cop stories Serpico, Prince of the City and Dog Day Afternoon, it also offers deeper meaning for anyone willing to look fo... full review

October 24, 2008
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle

Granted, the opening scenes are a shaky-cam chaos. Mawkishness and bleating illogic plague the endgame. But I might have forgiven even that had the remainder of the movie not been ruined in the trailer. full review

October 24, 2008
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

A talented cast and moments of brutal violence can't dislodge a sense of ho-hum predictability in Pride and Glory. full review

October 23, 2008
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

It follows the well-worn pathways of countless police dramas before it. full review

October 23, 2008
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Ostensibly about a steadily imploding Irish-cop family in New York, Pride and Glory sizzles with a subversive subtext that questions blind loyalty to institutions, from the White House to Wall Street,... full review

View more Pride and Glory reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments


  • AsianNorthOfThailandGeneration
    February 6, 2009
    Glitter Graphics

    Glitter You Rock Graphics


    very funny with 'em shot actions on the film . & i'm had to knew about newest english wordless on that film you know?Do you know Cop?This wordless user spoke on the film.It's meaning like same of the wordless 's Policed you know?
  • LessThanZero92
    January 12, 2008
    Anyone Know The Music From The Trailer?
  • FilmFanatic92
    November 8, 2007
    Any Movie With Colin Farrell And Edward Norton Starring Together Will Be Amazing. They Are Two of The Greatest Actors of Our Time. Im Sure This Will Be Good...
  • IzzyGibs
    November 3, 2007
    http://www.worstpreviews.com/trailer.php?id=162&item=0

    Trailer for Pride and Glory.

    I must say looks like another fine performance from Norton, and the film looks incredibly thrilling. I can't wait!!
  • singhelen
    June 7, 2007
    yaaaaaaay, first to comment here...though this movie is not yet out i am anxiously waitin for it. First Norton movie for the yr 07...m soo xcited

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Pride and Glory Trivia


  • the story of a small-town Texas high school football team in pursuit of glory. The Permian Panthers are almost the only source of entertainment and pride for their town.  Answer »
  • 'Pride and Glory' is an Edward Norton movie.  Answer »
  • 'Pride and Glory' is a Colin Farrell movie.  Answer »
  • Who investigates a case that reveals police corruption in Pride And Glory ?  Answer »

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