Prince of the City

This was one of those films that rose to the top of my Netflix queue after such a long time that I forgot why I put in there in the first place. Maybe I was revisiting the high points of Sidney Lumet’s long, varied, and distinguished career as a director. This film implicitly is a sequel to Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, with Treat Williams stepping in for Al Pacino and more than living up to the role. It’s based on the true story of a young go-getting NYC detective who seeks absolution by selectively informing on police corruption, and is crushed between two institutions in self-protective mode. Long but not too draggy, even though there is more psychological gamesmanship and bureaucratic infighting than action, this Prince is a gritty and evenhanded tragedy of a man caught in the middle, enmeshed in his environment and entangled in his own missteps. Seriously intended and thoughtfully made, it's a police story with weight. (And yet another film by which The Departed suffers in comparison -- there is some truth to the cliche, “They don’t make ’em like they used to.”) (1981, dvd, r.) *7+*