"Lawyer Meets Police Corruption"
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What You Need To Know:
A well-acted drama, NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN seems to unfold less in the gritty, real world of New York cops than in the sensational tabloid imagination of Robert Daley, who wrote the book on which Lumet based his screenplay. NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN injects needless sensationalism into the familiar and dramatically rich terrain of the lone honest man against the system. A welcome relief from over-hyped special effects in other competing movies, NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN ultimately falls short of the dramatic punch Lumet delivered in his previous police corruption movies, SERPICO and PRINCE OF THE CITY. Moreover, if and when doing right clashes with political expedience, God calls all Christians to adhere to His Law, because His laws are higher than man’s laws, and His ways higher than man’s ways
Content:
(H, Ro ,LLL,VV,S,A,M) Romantic, humanist worldview; 76 obscenities & 9 profanities; man shot with a gun, two men shot in the head, man falls from building, police beat on man, man attacks lawyer, & implied suicide by gunshot; implied sex, and, drinking.
More Detail:
In NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN, veteran New York film Director Sidney Lumet continues what seems to be his personal crusade to bring police corruption to the attention of American audiences. He first broached that theme in SERPICO, then continued to explore it in PRINCE OF THE CITY. Now, he serves up his third treatment of it in NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN.
Here, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Sean Casey (Andy Garcia) is assigned to prosecute hardened drug dealer/cop killer Jordan Washington (Shiek Mahmud-Bey) whose crusading defense lawyer, Sam Vigoda (Richard Dreyfuss), alleges that police corruption caused his client’s arrest. Manhattan District Attorney Morgenstern (Ron Leibman) is up for re-election and assigns this high-profile case to Sam, his new assistant, thinking that it is easy to win because the defendant’s guilt will be easily proved. Regrettably, Morgenstern fails to take into account the collaboration of underworld drug dealers with corrupt cops.
Sean Casey can compromise his high ideals for political expedience or stick to his guns and pursue the intimations of police corruption no matter where the trail leads. Complicating matters is the fact that Casey’s veteran-policeman father, Liam Casey (Ian Holm), was shot in the inciting incident and barely escaped with his life. In preparing his case, Casey must take into account that his father is his star witness, and any allegations of police corruption will impugn the department for which his father worked his whole life.
Well acted and well scripted, NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN seems to unfold less in the gritty, real world of New York cops than in the sensational tabloid imagination of Robert Daley, who wrote the book upon which Lumet based his screenplay. NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN explores the familiar and dramatically rich terrain of the lone honest man against the system. Regrettably, the film injects needless sensationalism into the much less dramatic and more mundane world of the police. Most cops are honest public servants, despite the small minority of crooked cops whom Lumet crusades to expose.
Although it is a welcome relief from over-hyped special effects in other competing movies, NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN ultimately falls short of the dramatic punch Lumet delivered in his predecessor films, SERPICO and PRINCE OF THE CITY. Moreover, if and when doing right clashes with political expedience, God calls all Christians to adhere to His Law, because His laws are higher than man’s laws, and His ways higher than man’s ways.
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