by Susan Ellis
ate in the game
in Night Falls on Manhattan, the hero of the story, attorney Sean
Casey (Andy Garcia) is asked, "Do you think you're perfect?" To
which he answers, "Not anymore."
As anyone who's seen a Sidney Lumet film (Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict) knows, the odds are against Casey and they're working him over good. Night Falls on Manhattan encompasses the grit of law enforcement in New York City, the felled ideals and the back-door routes to justice.
It
begins when Casey's father Liam (Ian Holm), a longtime detective, gets shot
while trying to arrest the flamboyant drug dealer Jordan Washington (Shiek
Mahmud-Bey). As Liam lies bleeding, all hell breaks loose as three more
cops are shot and Washington escapes. Casey, a former policeman himself
and newly minted assistant district attorney, is called up by the district
attorney (Ron Leibman) to bring Washington down.
Casey wins the case easily and is catapulted into the spotlight, snagging a new girlfriend, a lawyer for the defense (Lena Olin), and the district attorney's spot. But his good fortune soon evaporates when the Internal Affairs division begins investigating the cops who were on the scene the night of the fouled-up bust. As the investigation builds, Casey is forced to recognize that corruption hits close to home and that unseemly deals have to be struck to balance the scales of justice.
To emphasize all the ambiguities, the different grades of right and wrong, Lumet presents a rather straight-forward, no-frills film. This just-the-facts-ma'am style pervades Night Falls on Manhattan. It's shot by cinematographer David Watkin with very little color, which works with the melancholy feel. Working from Robert Daley's novel Tainted Evidence, Lumet has Casey struggling with the realities of his job to the bitter end. This approach is perhaps a bit too effective. While the climax nicely wraps up the film, there's a definite drag to the story as the lawyer considers his place within the flawed system. Garcia never really digs into this character, and the romance with Olin is equally without spark.
More interesting are the supporting characters, among them Mahmud-Bey as the volatile Washington, Richard Dreyfuss as the sleazy defense attorney, and James Gandolfini as Liam's crooked partner. They add punch to a film that would have otherwise ended in a hung jury.
IT'S BEEN SAID THAT LOVE conquers all. Sometimes it takes one heck of a fight.
Sprung, the romantic comedy directed by Rusty Cundieff and co-written
by Cundieff and Darin Scott, explores the dating game of dogs and golddiggers
and the ordinary folks who manage to float to the top to find each other.
Brandy (Tisha Campbell) is a lawyer who's been burned before. Her best friend Adina (Paula Jai Parker) is a devoted manhunter with an eye for the Big Kill. Clyde (Joe Torry) is a fast-food restaurant manager and a self-styled player, while his best friend Montel (Cundieff), a photographer, is more the sensitive type. The foursome meet up at a party as Adina uses her scanning abilities to determine who's a pimp, who's gay, who's a crackhead, and so on. Yet her skills fail her when she runs into Clyde, who's got her hooked with a fake bank statement and a borrowed Porsche. The two disappear, leaving Montel and Brandy alone together and bickering about whose friend's the worst.
Adina and Clyde's evening ends badly (there's jail time involved), but Montel and Brandy end up hitting it off. As they rush into a serious relationship (they are "sprung"), Adina and Clyde decide to band together and break the pair up. They start simply at first. Montel is gay or has hidden children, Adina tells Brandy. Brandy will grow fat and lazy, Clyde predicts. When this fails, they bring in the old-marrieds (among them Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford) to scare them. When this, too, has no result, Adina and Clyde really get nasty.
Much of Sprung is rote. Most of the funniest moments are the dirtier ones, and, therefore, the easiest. But Cundieff and Scott deserve some credit for trying. As Adina sizes up the men at the party, a computer-like image comes on the screen to give a read-out of her subjects; the men morph into dogs; and Adina sees a sucker in the mirror after she's hoodwinked by Clyde. It's when things get serious that the movie really falters and the actors show that, on the whole, they're not skilled enough to make up the difference.