The difference between right and wrong is not always clear. For example, it is wrong to take another person's life. But what about when that person is in front of you in line for a press screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and he invites 10 of his friends to join the line with him, cutting in front of you like you don't even matter? Then the subject becomes much more complicated.

Thorny ethical dilemmas are at the heart of Pride and Glory, an ugly and unpleasant cop drama directed by Gavin O'Connor (Tumbleweeds, Miracle) and starring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell as two of New York's finest. It begins with four NYPD officers being killed in a botched drug raid, then dissolves into a familiar, uninspired movie about crooked cops.

Yes, it's crooked cops again, that old chestnut. If what happens in Pride and Glory (an arbitrary title, by the way) were the least bit different from what happens in the other 10,000 movies about crooked cops, I'd be a lot more interested in it. But it's the same old story: scenes of witness coercion and perp-beating are interspersed with scenes of manly men swearing at each other with New York accents. I'll get my crooked-cop fix on The Shield, thank you very much.

What Doesn't Kill You, meanwhile, is on the other side of the law, though it's just as "gritty" and "stark" and "full of profanity." This one's set in Boston and focuses on two low-level criminals, played by Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke, who, like many men, want to increase the size of their racket. This, too, is generic and uncompelling, though certain aspects of it (like Ruffalo's performance) make it tolerable, whereas Pride and Glory is just flat-out bad.

(Bonus: Donnie Wahlberg has a brief, useless cameo as a cop in What Doesn't Kill You. This is in accordance with the Massachusetts state law that says any crime film set in Boston must contain at least one Wahlberg.)

When it comes to matters of right and wrong, the vast majority of the world's population at least occasionally seeks guidance from a fellow by the name of God. Comedian Bill Maher believes the 4 billion people who believe in a Supreme Being are delusional, and that organized religion is a blight that must be wiped out if humanity is to progress. His film, Religulous, documents his conversations with the dumbest, least eloquent, most extreme believers he can find, all in the interest of convincing the audience that religion is silly and that God is imaginary.

Maher is preaching to the choir, of course. No one who believes in God is going to see this film and think, "Hey, he's right. I'm going to become an atheist." Maher's tactics are grossly unfair, and his smarmy disdain for the people he interviews is readily apparent. This would be fine if all he wanted to do was make a comedy. Believe me, I'm very much in favor of making fun of people who disagree with you, and Religulous is often very funny. But if Maher genuinely wants to make a serious point -- and his impassioned diatribe at the end indicates he does -- then he would have to do a better job of it than he has done here.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us