Q & A (1990)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Although the story is fictional, the message is hard fact reality."Quinn: Law degree? Reilly: Brooklyn. Quinn: Why not St. John's?Reilly: My father thought the Jesuits were too left-wing."Well thats pretty much hard fact reality in America. At the podium where justice is written and executed, the battle between Jesuits and Jewish Rabbis is played out inside Q & A. Guess what? The Jewish "morale" wins over conservative catholicism. The above quote is hard fact reality in America, because America, Hollywood, and foremost the legal and Justice system is run by Jews. The best part of Q&A is where Rabbis are dancing around the Grand Jury's table. A very sobering fact for all the old-(Jesuit)-school educated law enforcement men, whose only relief is that requiem mass and Scottish Pipe's assisted last march.

Guess the film from the following description of its characters. A young man investigating misdeeds in the police force, motivated by the memory of his father (a legendary policeman) but also by the pain of having lost the affections of a woman he loves to another player in the drama. A renegade cop, rampaging violently through the city, but revered on the force for standing up to the scum on the streets. And the renegade's boss, who protects him, partly because he himself is on old-school Irish policeman; but partly because he appreciates having his own private bag-man, especially in his dealings with organised crime. Throw in some prostitutes for a little background colour, and it sounds like a perfect description of 'L.A. Confidential'. But it also describes this tough and underrated movie made by Sidney Lumet some years before Curtis Hanson's film.Whereas Hanson's film was stylised, and glamorised violence (provided the cause was just), Lumet has gone for a more realist approach, and his bad cop (played mesmerisingly by Nick Nolte) is completely rotten, in fact resembling Harvey Kietel's 'Bad Liutennant' in Abel Fererra's movie. The film is dated by its ghastly electronic soundtrack, and more interestingly by its portrait of New York at a time when the city was at its lowest ebb. But it's a very well assembled thriller, exploring issues of race, mixed loyalties and the meaning of good policing without flinching from a grim picture of life on the margins of law abiding society. Lumet has had a long career, but this is one of his better films, and ultimately more truthful than Hanson's stylish charade. Each are good, in their own way: why is only one so appreciated?

I really loved this movie when it first came out. It was sort of a Serpico for the 90's. The plot is a little convoluted and the movie could have perhaps used a little better screen writing, but the great performances by the magnificent cast more than makes this movie work.What I really think the movie does best is capture NYC as it was then. The dark side, the corruption of the political, judicial and law enforcement divisions. The not-so subtle racial divisiveness. It's all amazingly real and being a born and bred New Yorker,it was scary to watch, yet all too believable. I loved that all the characters in this movie are flawed and human. There is no real right or wrong in this movie - just shades of gray. This has been done many times in movies before and is nothing new, particularly with Sidney Lumet films, but I can't think of a movie that has done it better.I saw one user post a criticism for the last five minutes, I can't think of a better ending for this movie. (Spoiler alert.) When Bloomey tells Francis Reilly that it's all over and they're going to do nothing about his investigation but file it away and gives him the hard knock explanations as to why and how the world really works. I was just as floored by this scene the first time I watched it as Francis Reilly is in the movie. I just love this ending. The short epilogue with Jenny Lumet's character is OK and serves to sort of tie up a last loose end in the film.By the way, to that other commentator about the cheesy Rueben Blades theme song. (Don't double cross the ones you love.") Your not the only one who can't get that cheesy song out of your head whenever you watch this movie.Perhaps Blades should pursue a career as a jingle songwriter instead, he seems to have a lot of potential talent for it.

This was an exciting and interesting movie, but I don't understand why the the musical score had such cheesy feel-good rock songs at the beginning and end of the movie...If you want to hear a good musical score in a decrepit NYC, watch Taxi Driver.