Popcorn & a Movie

Pride and Glory isn’t really anything to be proud of and definitely isn’t glorious. Like last year’s We Own the Night, it’s a NYC police drama about a family full of cops dirtying in the muck tracked in by the familial black sheep. Only whereas Night emphasized an organic narrative sense, Pride emphasizes fractured grit. Whereas Night danced along on sleek camerawork and directorial knowhow, Pride is clumsy and amateurish. And whereas Night was flawed but occasionally gripping, Pride is really just flawed.
But of course it is. It’s suffered numerous set backs, release date changes and festival booings. It stars a Box Office-allergic Colin Farrell rocking a poorly masked Irish accent, while playing a New York native (I like this guy, I really do…but he’s pretty much a curse at this point). And the final draft was rewritten by Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces), a writer/director who seems just about as overrated as anybody can be.
And then there’s indie director Gavin O’Connor. When you assign a big budget feature to an indie-minded director looking to bridge into studio films, there are only two possible outcomes: 1.) he anchors the action in a grounded sentimentality (as O’Connor did with Disney’s Miracle) or 2.) he turns in a well-intentioned botch-job. There is no in-between. And I’m guessing you can figure out which category I think this one falls into.
I mention all this because the story, to its credit, isn’t bad. A tad bit redundant, sure. But the story at the heart of this film – one brother assigned to investigate a crime orchestrated by another, with the rest of the family crashing down in collateral damage – is intensely provocative in concept. Alas, in execution, and in the hands of the men listed above, it all adds up to a big, messy pile of wasted opportunity.
So how bad is Pride and Glory? Not so bad it will make you sick (though Farrell’s crooked cop goes places even The Shield’s Vic Mackey would never dare tread), but not good enough to merit anything more than a DVD rental on a cold winter’s day. And hey, we’ll be needing plenty of those soon enough.