Narc
Director: Joe Carnahan
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 1.0
Visually trumped up police procedural that never breaks any new ground - Jason Patric teams up with Ray Liotta (menacing as always) to find cop killers in the slums of Detroit, made all the more gloomy with filters and sparse lighting (2002 was not the year that made the Motor City look good). Overplays its hand by gratuitously showing the same execution over and over again - that of the cop being shot in the head - and then pleads for sympathy with the scenes that involve Patric and his wife (his newborn child and unhappy wife are used as an easy ploys for sympathy). After a lot of shaky camera movement and piercing gun blasts, it winds up at its conclusion, which goes through this windy, logically-questionable "But What Really Happened Was ..." explanation and follows it up with even more over-the-top screaming and bleeding from the mouth.
