Pride and Glory 2008

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Pride and Glory, directed by Gavin O'Connor, plods across familiar ground. It's yet another movie about the fraternal disorder of the police. Read more

Sara Cardace, New York Magazine/Vulture: There may not be much new about director Gavin O'Connor's cop-corruption drama, but it's packed with enough gritty action and unflinching violence to keep things interesting. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: An unexceptional police drama that doesn't live up to its high ambition, Pride and Glory feels like a television cop show that made it through one season before disappearing. Read more

Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: What it lacks in subtlety and intelligence it makes up in violence, brutishness, and hackneyed story lines. These are qualities best enjoyed at home. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Pride And Glory would have felt second-hand and overly familiar even if it were greenlit in 1937 as a vehicle for Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: There's nothing new about the film, including its basic problem: a cast of talented actors cut off at the knees by stilted, cliched writing. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Director Gavin O'Connor and co-screenwriter Joe Carnahan take a perfectly fine B-movie premise and slow it down to an A-movie pace; in the process, they remove the juice that keeps a story like this honest. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: A plodding, formulaic police drama bathed in bluish light, Pride and Glory displays very little of either. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Pride and Glory is full of interesting little grace notes, and the cast is excellent, yet it grows more and more frustrating. It has everything going for it except a story that doesn't send the audience out miles ahead of the plot developments. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Granted, the opening scenes are a shaky-cam chaos. Mawkishness and bleating illogic plague the endgame. But I might have forgiven even that had the remainder of the movie not been ruined in the trailer. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It's yet another movie about familial strife in the New York City Police Department. If you think you've seen it all before, you have. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Well-paced, well-acted, Pride and Glory is much richer than routine. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Not that the movie's a knockout by any means. But it does bring enough integrity, good acting and old-fashioned mean street snarl to the formula to show it can still work. Read more

Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly: A tightly acted and emotionally bruising corrupt-cop family drama that feels like the kind of serious, slow-burn NYPD movie nobody -- not even Lumet -- makes anymore. Read more

Miami Herald: Even the weakest episode of TV's The Shield owns Pride and Glory outright: This is the kind of movie so relentlessly derivative, you can figure out the turns and surprises awaiting in the script just five minutes into the story. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Intelligently directed, beautifully shot (by Declan Quinn) and takes what has come to be an unorthodox approach to the writing of screenplays: It assumes the audience isn't made up of idiots. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's bearable for two acts, but eventually sensation overtakes sense. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The dirty-cop drama Pride and Glory overshoots the mark by spinning its implausible, hyperviolent tale around too tight a family circle. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: When the writers went to the Dialogue Store, it must have been closed because they loaded their cart from whatever they found in the Dumpster out back. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: What we're left with isn't an embarrassment, but isn't anything for this proud cast to glory in, either. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Pride and Glory definitely stirs up some drama. But the script doesn't serve the drama well. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It wants to be different; yet, in the end, the elements that separate this police corruption film from those with similar themes and subjects are those that derail the climax and send this freight train careening out of control. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It follows the well-worn pathways of countless police dramas before it. Read more

Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon.com: What makes the characters in Pride and Glory real -- and raises the movie above the standard corrupt-cop fare -- is their capacity to live and die in shades of gray. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Pride and Glory is more than just lousy; it's an amalgam of every bad tendency of the current cinema, stitched together into a single 125-minute monstrosity of a cop movie. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A gritty thriller in the bloodline of Sidney Lumet's compelling New York City cop stories Serpico, Prince of the City and Dog Day Afternoon, it also offers deeper meaning for anyone willing to look for it. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: A talented cast and moments of brutal violence can't dislodge a sense of ho-hum predictability in Pride and Glory. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: There's nothing really wrong with Pride and Glory, apart from an excessive degree of brutality, but there's nothing terribly revelatory about it either. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

Wally Hammond, Time Out: Bloody, violent and increasingly derivative, 'Pride and Glory' betrays its initial promise as a small-scale, 'Godfather'-esque social tapestry with crude plotting, variable acting and an all-too-guessable storyline and conclusion. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Pride's only saving grace is Edward Norton, whose mere presence raises the level of a film several notches. But it's unclear why he lately has chosen such worn-out material. Read more

Robert Wilonsky, Village Voice: How ironic that a movie filled with police officers should end up feeling like a hostage situation. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Pride and Glory would be risible if it weren't so reprehensible. Read more