(5) Mrs. Allen says that twelve prosecutors met to debate whether to indict Leuci for perjury. To me he was royalty. Although Danny Ciello wanted to cleanse himself and do the right thing, the path to that was to bring down the cop family, the close, tightly knit unit that he was part of. The direction is great, the dialog heavily laced with coarse language that deepens the realism, and the acting is fantastic. The film Prince of the City has been one of my favorite films for many years. Lumet's best work on the two sides of the law, terrible Treat Williams – mediocre, dragging script – below average 2h40 cop movie, a 5 course meal that should have been microwaved. Rated R X. I've been a defense lawyer in NYC for the past 35 yars. Prince of the City ( 1981) Prince of the City. A few years after this was in the theaters, it was shown on TV over two nights. It is not a movie about heroes or villains or societal symbols. (4) Oh, Lord, people who go on do seem to be the cause of going on in others. The difference between theory and practice is much greater in practice than in theory. You know the gag, "Behind the tinsel and glitter of Hollywood, there's a lot more tinsel and glitter." When detective Treat Williams decides to work with officials on a wide-reaching police-corruption sting in Prince Of The City, Sidney Lumet's gut-wrenching 1981 epic about the sickness and hypocrisy of "the system," he longs for absolution, but within certain limits. He lied about communists and earned guilty verdicts for the Justice Department. In the holy city of Alamut resides the Sands of Time, which gives mortals the power to turn back time. Though long, Prince of the City is never boring, and it leaves its moral dilemmas largely unanswered, letting the viewer sort out who did the right thing. As instances of police corruption which he suggests the movie makers either ignored or swept under the rug, Mr. Pileggi reeled off a list of offenses cited by the Knapp Commission against officers charged with responsibility for narcotics law enforcement at the street level. He then recanted his lies. PRINCE OF THE CITY has an excellent script by Jay Presson Allen and a fine cast lead by Treat Williams and the best of NY's local actors. Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest. I liked it then; now, I don't know what I was thinking. Every 4 Tickets = $5 For You. A number of prominent members of the criminal justice system, whose expertise in their field surely transcends Mr. Kempton’s, have gone to some pains to communicate their satisfaction in the movie. Let me at least say that I know criminal justice, as it is called, somewhat more intimately than the former general counsel of the Mayo Clinic who is now the Supreme Court justice Mrs. Allen cites as an authority on this dirty business. This does not mean that I understand cops—as Mrs. Allen’s hero put the case with such thundering originality, “It’s a jungle out there”—but I can claim to know perhaps as much about the subject as any journalist who spent a year in Palermo could about Sicily, which is precious little but enough to assure me that only someone who had never seen night court could conceive the one presented early on in Prince of the City. I have read a number of Christopher Reich's book and have always enjoyed them.The Prince of Risk is no exception. One day he said a common occurance during an arrest was for the police to take and keep any money he had, and take AND SELL THE DRUGS THEY CONFISCATED! Some are admirable, others pitiful, some are despicable. Just watched this recently; saw it on it's first run when I was seventeen and Treat Williams was a hot young actor destined for stardom. PRINCE OF THE CITY is a film about a narcotics officer who co-operates with Internal Affairs to build a case against criminals and policemen involved in police corruption. The film takes places in the nether world of elite narcotics police who resemble no one so much as the Mafiosi in … (2) One hesitates to puff one’s credentials upon subjects as sleazy as criminal justice. Mr. Kempton chastises the people who made Prince of the City for “a parade of inauthenticities” which no one “remotely familiar with law enforcement agencies would make.” Mr. Kempton makes the ex cathedra pronouncement that “no policeman would think to tell a District Attorney that all society is a jungle” because he’s “aware that an ADA knows that as well as he does.” I can only submit that in a moment of passion Bob Leuci made the tiresome social error of telling somebody something they already knew. Complete your Wiz Khalifa collection. Everyone knows "Serpico" (a good film), "The French Connection" (a very good film) and so many other good (and not very good) films, yet for some reason that remains sad and frustrating, this film remains virtually unknown and unappreciated. It is not a movie about heroes or villains or societal symbols. With no special effects, no big name actors, no sex, Mr. Lumet has me glued to the screen for nearly three hours. And after seeing it I totally understand why it has been forgotten. Mr. Daley (and the screenwriters) read volumes of witness depositions and court transcripts and listened to hundreds of hours of tape, recorded both openly and undercover. Nicholas Scoppetta, the District Attorney so addressed, taped the encounter in which Mr. Leuci suffered this regrettable lapse of taste. Serpico was an immensely popular movie for a number of good reasons, including the fact that it was a story of good guys against bad. Why is this film not known as one of the greatest of all time??? It is, in fact, trebly more suspicious than autobiography, which is at worst no more than the lies the autobiographer has told himself. I agree with the other reviewer that this is in the class of the great ones like the Godfather, On the Waterfront, Raging Bull, along with the French Connection, and Serpico. Danny often crosses the blurry boundary himself. Get a $5 reward for a movie on us. THEY NEVER HAVE! Despite such influential, well-respected films as 12 Angry Men, The Pawnbroker, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network, director Sidney Lumet is often forgotten in considerations of the most influential filmmakers. Hell, even I knew they were lies. User Ratings This movie outlined very well the pitfalls, traps and emotional traumas associated with this type of betrayal. (1) “Distinguished” seems to me a rather outsized adjective to apply to journalism and movie criticism. Mr. Kempton, alas, is rather more “remotely” familiar with police and prosecutorial procedure than he believes or than his editors have every right to expect. Awards After seeing this movie do you have any doubts? Receive a $10 Reward. (6) The great joke is that Mrs. Allen has been so unfair to prosecutors as to arouse even me to cry, “Enough, already.” I am so implacably and irresponsibly defense-minded that prosecutors are always abusing me for my affection for the felon in question, and I can only reply by reminding them that they will all too soon be counsel for the defense of some unspeakable dope peddler and soliciting and, what’s more disgraceful, getting my sympathy. | The film is long, but you never lose interest. Next, Mr. Kempton insists that no cop would ever “talk to, let alone drink with and take into his sympathetic grasp, another cop rumored to be talking to prosecutors.” However, all the foregoing actions did occur and are attested to by Mr. Leuci’s police bodyguards as well as by the officers involved. It's a GREAT film. 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. That's like starting for the Yankees. Treat Williams never again received a role nor gave a performance that approached the stellar proportions of this one. Also, look for some familiar faces who give great performances. Also present were Nicholas Scoppetta and Michael Shaw, under whose auspices the Leuci case had its origins, and Rudy Giuliani, at present the assistant attorney general of the United States. Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest, The Young Pretender from the October 22, 1981 issue. Bravo! Time was when movies were written by hacks to whom this distinguished journal would have been terra incognita. ... Diogo Serafim’s review published on Letterboxd: A moral imbroglio, a film that understands how the sensitive and emotional dimensions are more politically and socially relevant than the rational one by miles. , because the movie was lifted straight from the fact of that meeting ; I merely certified the of. 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