Sidney Lumet – Prince of the City (1981)

adminAugust 24, 2012

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A New York City narcotics detective reluctantly agrees to cooperate with a special commission investigating police corruption, and soon realises he’s in over his head, and nobody can be trusted.

Letterboxd:
★★★★½ Watched by SilentDawn 28 May 2021
83
Prince of the City finds master director Sidney Lumet once again immersed under the microscope of loyalty – the connections between overt emotional stakes and the baseline structures that fuel systemic corruption. What matters isn’t necessarily what’s right for our detective protagonist, played with finesse and snarky elegance by Treat Williams, but how the world around him is in a constant state of manipulation. The key is in Lumet’s novelistic pacing – the film sporting an epic grandeur that nonetheless lives and dies by the sudden motivations and spur of the moment decisions of this web of lies. Not only does it earn its length, but Prince of the City is also concerned with how large-scale this portrait is, much to the detriment of its main character. Somehow, the moments for reflection are few and far in between, the struggle being nothing in comparison to the consequence. Excellent, all around.