Pletchner from REPO MAN sticking his head through a window pane during the Columbians' bust; the chair collapse in the IA office; Orbach roughing up the state's attorney; the junkie chase in the rain; accidentally handing a receipt from the DA's office to the crooked bondsman - these are dynamite scenes equal to some of Lumet's best work. The supporting cast and occasional gritty dialog are Lumet hallmarks. The camera's always in the right place, the city looks dirty, the cops look like hoods, the hoods look like cops, all's well in the looks department.
But this movie is 2 hours too long at 3 hours, and Treat Williams, though decked out in a series of wonderful coats, gives an atypically uneven performance. The Lumet-Jay Allen script also is terribly imbalanced, burying Williams under awful expositional speeches. Depthful insight is sacrificed to an epic, shallow and ultimately trite style.
Lumet got the best out of Chayefsky and Waldo Salt and Mamet, and Pacino and Steiger and Dan O'Herlihy and a lot of people, and he is among the best directors in terms of camera movement and B&W lighting; but he also made THE WIZ, THE ANDERSON TAPES, and GUILTY AS SIN. He once said that the best work comes from preparing for the miracle to happen. Sometimes it doesn't happen. It happened several times on this set, but if you're going to write this many monologues your name better be Shakespeare; and if you're going to direct this many monologues, your name better be something other than Sidney Lumet. (for other Lumet monologue embarrassments, see Sean Connery's drunken confession in THE OFFENCE.)
But this movie is 2 hours too long at 3 hours, and Treat Williams, though decked out in a series of wonderful coats, gives an atypically uneven performance. The Lumet-Jay Allen script also is terribly imbalanced, burying Williams under awful expositional speeches. Depthful insight is sacrificed to an epic, shallow and ultimately trite style.
Lumet got the best out of Chayefsky and Waldo Salt and Mamet, and Pacino and Steiger and Dan O'Herlihy and a lot of people, and he is among the best directors in terms of camera movement and B&W lighting; but he also made THE WIZ, THE ANDERSON TAPES, and GUILTY AS SIN. He once said that the best work comes from preparing for the miracle to happen. Sometimes it doesn't happen. It happened several times on this set, but if you're going to write this many monologues your name better be Shakespeare; and if you're going to direct this many monologues, your name better be something other than Sidney Lumet. (for other Lumet monologue embarrassments, see Sean Connery's drunken confession in THE OFFENCE.)