Crime clichés shoot down 'Pride and Glory'

"Anything that makes cops look culpable is bad!" groans Chief of Detectives Francis Tierney, Sr.

Does that mean any movie that makes cops look bad is culpable?

"Pride and Glory" only makes some of its Manhattan cops look bad, and that's because they've gone on a crime spree of their own, murdering people, stealing their drugs, invading their homes and threatening to press a hot iron on an infant's face if they don't get what they want.

You'd think a gritty cop movie with such a hard edge and stellar heavyweight cast - Edward Norton, Colin Farrell and Jon Voight - would make for one heckuva riveting crime drama.

"Pride and Glory" quickly squanders its promise of another "Serpico" or "Prince of the City" and almost dies in a hail of deadly crime clichés. Hardly a scene goes by that doesn't remind us of some other, better good cop/bad cop story. The film's most inventive moment occurs when a thug uses a grocery-grade potato as a silencer. (Yes, that really works.)

During the Christmas season, several of New York's finest get killed in a drug bust gone horribly awry. Earnest and honest Detective Ray Tierney (Norton) gets the call to find the shooter.

"Whoever he is, he's no amateur!" Ray intones.

It doesn't take long for us to find out that Ray's own brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan (Farrell), is a cop on the take, except he views himself as a good cop on the take, the kind who removes the city trash without warrants or due process and pockets a little something extra for his troubles.

Ray's brother Francis, Jr. (Noah Emmerich) is a straight arrow detective trying to live up to the standards of his alcoholic father Francis Sr. (Voight). He has no clue what his own men are up to.

Each cop gets an obligatory back story: Ray has split from his wife; Jr.'s wife is battling cancer; Jimmy's wife gets honked off that low-lives hang around her house.

"Pride and Glory" is a properly violent drama, but Gavin O'Connor directs it with such airless enterprise, it comes off as dour and depressing instead of the hard-earned triumph of virtue it intends.

It's hard to get excited over a movie where the epitome of dialogue consists of, "These are my guys! I'm going in!"