Narc

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Rating

strong brutal violence, drug content and pervasive language

Director

Joe Carnahan

You don't wanna know

Starring

Detroit gets a far grittier look here than in "8 Mile," when two rogue cops partner up to find out who killed Officer Michael Calvess (Alan Van Sprang) while he was working undercover in the narcotics unit. With the intensity of "Training Day" (Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke), Lt. Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) and Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) team up for another off beat and intensely gripping and violent film about life among the low life's of a big city. "Lethal Weapon" this is not.

The film opens with Nick chasing thugs through a housing project, where he shoots a pregnant woman with a child, when he takes out a bad guy who thinks that holding a young baby hostage in his arms will keep Nick from pulling the trigger. Nick is suspended from the force (the pregnant woman lost her baby), and 18 months later he volunteers to speak to a board of inquiry that is interested in his reinstatement if he helps Lt. Oak find out who recently killed officer Calvess. Not only will a conviction get him back on the force-he'll be able to pick his assignment.

During his suspension, Nick's family life has improved. At one point during the recent pregnancy of his wife, he was in detox because he became a part of what he was fighting. Like Edward Norton in "Red Dragon", Nick is a cop who reluctantly gets involved in a case that is giving the politicians such headaches that they are willing to make a deal with the devil to get it solved. Nick, who has the innocent looks of comedian Dennis Miller, teams up with Ray Liotta with the intensity he showed in "Hannibal".

Captain Cheevers (Chi McBride) describes Oak as "not stable." Any chance he was a balanced guy vanished when his wife died of cancer after a wonderful marriage of 16 years. As Oak says the best place he ever had been was to lay his head on her lap. After her death, he was the cop who was first through the door. His mission now, which he wants everyone to accept, is to find who killed his partner.

Nick moves from being cavalier about solving the murder to being totally committed. He's a "peel the onion back" detective, layer by layer, and as he learns more about the history of Oaks' relationship with Cheevers and his wife Katherine (Anne Openshaw), the question of the three of them possibly being "dirty" becomes a legitimate lead to pursue.

Liotta's performance is Oscar caliber and Patric is not far behind. If Liotta had built up the pile of IOU's like Denzel did last year, he might get more notice than we expect to be the case for a nomination for best actor. Dragging the film down a bit is the TV like caricature of Chi McBride and the predictable, yet understandable, "I've had enough" from Nick's wife.

Using a flashback of the killing, shown from different points of view, we see what truly did happen. Everyone had a reason to do what they did. Toward the end of the film when Oak is putting the pressure on Beery (Busta Rhymes) and his partner, both low level drug dealers, who had a relationship with Captain Cheevers, the truth is revealed. Yet as in life, sometimes when people say "you don't wanna know," that's exactly what they mean. By that time, you may have forced yourself into a corner, where the only thing to do is to choose between one felony or another; the lesser of two evils. When you finally know, you wish you didn't.