Film Review: Prince of the City

"Prince of the City"

**** (out of ****) 

At nearly three hours long Sidney Lumet's "Prince of the City" (1981) is an absorbing, complex moral examination of a man seeking to redeem his soul not through religious conviction but by trying to live up to his own moral code of conduct.

The fact that the subject matter of the film is a New York police officer, Danny Ciello (Treat Williams) leads some to not only compare it to one of  Lumet's previous films, "Serpico" (1973) but also strictly view it as a film about police corruption. On the surface, yes, that's what "Prince of the City" is about but that's not the most compelling aspect of the film. What is most compelling about the film is to witness the disintegration of a man. Never have I seen a film present and take the the viewer down such a labyrinthine path of morality.  

"Prince of the City" centers on an investigation involving corrupt undercover narcotics cops and the police officer that exposed everything. However it isn't such a simple black and white case. Danny won't rat on his partners. That's not to say his partners are innocent but the moral code for cops is your partners are the only people you can rely on. They are the people that have your back in life and death situations. You have earned each others trust. And yet is it Danny that volunteers to come forward and become an informant. He is driven by a sense a duty. No one joins the force to become corrupt he says. 

That search for justice is what makes "Prince of the City" such a uniquely Sidney Lumet film. Lumet spent a career - he died at age 86 in 2011 - creating films revolving around the theme of justice - "12 Angry Men" (1957), "Serpico", and "The Verdict" (1982) among others. But those same films were also about moral responsibility, making Danny the stereotypical Lumet hero. Pauline Kael, the "movie critic" for the New Yorker once, ignorantly, characterized this aspect of Lumet's work as "the chronicles of agonized morality".

Despite its subject matter I could argue that Lumet's film has more in common with not "Serpico" but Martin Scorsese's much later film, "GoodFellas" (1990). First both films are based on real men. Both films are about loyalty. They are about "mad men". For Scorsese they are called "goodfellas", for Lumet they are referred to as "princes of the city". Both men fall from the grace of those around them and both men are consumed by moments of paranoia. The difference is where Henry Hill strikes a plea deal for his cooperation, we never really hear such terms defined for Danny. In one scene, after two years of of undercover work, some of the same men Danny worked with plead their case to a judge for why charges should be brought forth against him. Danny may have aided them but he also broke the law. What difference does his motivation make. The law is the law. 

This sets up the most interesting dilemma for Danny. The men he is working against treat him like family. In many dicey situations Danny finds himself in, they are there to save him. While the "good guys" who he is cooperating with often fail him over and over again. In one suspenseful scene his back up doesn't know their way around the streets of New York and nearly lose him in a moment when his life is in danger. And he's helping these people? They don't treat him as one of their own. He will never be one of them.

So why does Danny ultimately do what he does? Lumet and "Prince of the City" present a dichotomy within Danny. On one hand he is a good cop and yet he is not above bending and working around the law to get answers and keep his sources happy. When a heroine drug addict calls Danny late at night because he is 'sick', Danny races to come to his street informant's rescue to score him his fix . But since it is against the law to buy drugs from a dealer, Danny just pins down another addict walking out of a drug house and hands the informant what he finds. Danny however feels bad about the shake down and drives the addict, whom he also knows, home.

And this is why Danny is initially upset and insulted by the investigation into cops. Danny gives a rousing and damning speech complaining how it is easier to go after the cops but what about the lawyers and judges and D.A. that take their bribes? They all sit in judgement of the police officers but the entire system, from top to bottom is corrupt and broken. People don't understand the officer's position and what it takes to get the job done. This may make the material sound rather right wing in its view, a la Dirty Harry. In Lumet's hands he finds the moral complexity and doesn't make harsh judgements. Never at any moment did I feel Danny and his partners were bad men. Of course it helps that Lumet never really shows us the cops breaking the law.

One of the best things Lumet's film does is show us how these officers - Gus (Jerry Orbach), Joe (Richard Foronjy), Bill (Don Billett), and Gino (Ccarmine Caridi) are like family. They spend time together when off duty. Their wives know each and are friendly. When Danny's own wife, Carla (Lindsay Crouse) hears about Danny's intentions, she can't believe it. He is going against his friends.

Given the film's running time it takes on the scope of something important, going to great detail to paint a portrait of these men and the seedy characters they encounter. In Janet Maslin's New York Times review she described it this way, "Mr. Lumet's film offers such a sharply detailed landscape, such a rich and crowded portrait , that his characters reveal themselves fully by the ways they move, eat, speak, listen, and lie."

With this type of film whether it will either succeed or fail falls on the acting and Treat Williams performance in "Prince of the City" may have been the best of his career. The role calls for Williams to display power, sensitivity, fear, paranoia, the entire array of emotions and at every turn William's delivers. He fleshes this character out, making his moral dilemma relatable. How could he have been ignored for an Academy Award nomination? And the fact Lumet was ignored as well for his directing and the film for best picture is a slap in the face. I suppose as amends the Academy would shower Lumet's next picture, "The Verdict" with multiple nominations.

As relatable as Danny's dilemma is, Lumet also wants to challenge the audience, leaving us in suspended disbelief. Is Danny telling the truth and nothing but the truth? He confesses to taking bribes three times in his 11 year career dealing with drugs. But, given his loyalty to his partners is he omitting anything? When this case is called to trial, if Danny is found committing perjury, the book will be thrown at him. William's performance is able to walk a fine line where we can't tell if he is having a breakdown from the stress or if he is a man whose lies are catching up to him. Does Danny even recognize the truth anymore?

In one of the few moments of seriousness on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast - I miss not being able to listen to new episodes - Treat Williams was a guest and said the way Lumet explained the character to him was, "once you turn, you can't turn back". And that is what is at the heart of William's performance, a loss of control. He vows to himself he won't rat on his friends but events escalate beyond anything Danny could have imagined, contributing to how "movie critic" for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum described the film as "this film swims freely in moral ambiguities".

The blurry lines between right and wrong is actually what Chicago Tribune movie critic Gene Siskel thought hurt the movie at the box-office, suggesting audiences prefer to see movies with clearly defined "good guys" and "bad guys". Of course that blurriness is one of the most interesting aspects of the film. In Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times review he summed up Danny's situation as  "a film about how difficult it is to go straight in a crooked world without hurting people you love." 

Ebert's line becomes something that Danny will continuously have to struggle with as it becomes apparent in the film's final scene. The line will be drawn with police officers on both sides judging if what Danny did was fair or not. Did he break the code of silence among cops? Or did he expose an injustice?

Some will find the film's story relevant in today's world. Police culture has and hasn't changed compared to when this film takes place. There is still a code of silence among officers but there has been a slow thaw beginning with some officers willing to testify against others. We have even had criminal convictions set against some. But if "Prince of the City" tells us anything it is that corruption is cyclical.

If you follow my blog - I know you just hang on my every word - you'll recall last year, during "the year of me" - last year's theme celebrating my 40th birthday and the 15th anniversary of this blog - I reviewed Lumet's "Daniel" (1983) for its 40th anniversary. I shocked myself when I realized in the past 15 years I had never reviewed a Lumet film previously, despite the fact I believe he was a truly gifted filmmaker. I made a vow to discuss his films more often. I had several choices to choose from but "Prince of the City" was the one I was most eager to dive into. I feel thematically it is typical of Lumet's output and I wanted to help shine a light on it.

More importantly this year marked Sidney Lumet's centennial birthday. In Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center there was a retrospective program dedicated to him as a celebration. This also attributed to Lumet and his films being on my mind. I worry today Lumet may be a forgotten figure. I don't often hear people talk about him and his films anymore and I don't come across them playing on television. If I do it is thanks to Turner Classic Movies showing something like "Network" (1976). And I didn't come across any articles written about Lumet's impact this year in honor of his birthday.

Lumet was a very important filmmaker. Although he wasn't part of the "New Hollywood" - like Robert Altman his career dates back to the 1950s - some of his best known films may have been made in the 1970s  - "Network", "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974) and "Serpico". Unlike so many other distinguished directors, his output in the 1980s had several high spots, proving he was just as creative and productive in the decade with the release of films such as "Prince of the City", "The Verdict", "Daniel", and "Running on Empty" (1988). Though some of these films weren't as influential as those from the prior decade. He remained active in the 90s and got to end his career on a high note with his final film, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" (2007), one of his best.

As I say "Prince of the City" has been neglected by the public and was a failure at the box-office. It did receive good reviews from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Siskel declared it as one of the best films of 1981 and Ebert awarded it four stars. The legendary critic Andrew Sarris also named it one of the best films of 1981 as well. It also earned one Academy Award nomination for screenwriters Jay Presson Allen and Lumet in the adapted screenplay category. As well as earning three Golden Globe nominations - best picture (in a drama), Lumet for his directing and finally one for Williams' performance.

"Prince of the City" is one of Sidney Lumet's best films and one of the great films of the 1980s, featuring an excellent performance by Treat Williams with a supporting cast that gives the film a lot of color. This is a thought-provoking film exposing the sinner and saint in all of us and comes to no easy conclusions.