'Night Falls on Manhattan' pounds with corruption

'Night Falls on Manhattan' pounds with corruption

By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan

JAKARTA (JP): If one person can be cited for molding New
York's urban angst into its present film noir form, it is Sidney
Lumet.

Starting in the 1970s with his memorable Serpico, Lumet has
helped immortalize the genre's hallmarks of frenetic pace, the
neurotic drive for success, the daily convergence of hyper-
tension, opportunism, skepticism and cut-throat competition
creating the conundrum that is the city itself.

In this urban labyrinth of Stygian gloom where naivete has no
place, sugar-high dynamism belies skewed, overworked brains
teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Lumet revels in
such paradoxes, celebrating not the pasted smiles that make up
their social facade, but the gaping hole of modern
disillusionment beneath.

His latest New York in Night Falls on Manhattan, is his old,
unchanged one pounding with corruption and violence, stretching
insalubriously from the dark and dingy ghetto of dope dealers,
scavengers and scum of the earth right to the heart of law
enforcement. As usual, his focus is not on the pitch black
representation of evil or milk white embodiment of truth, but the
blurred, ill-defined gray in between.

In the movie's superb opening montage, we see a bedraggled
Sean Casey (Andy Garcia) learning the hard, ugly facts about the
daily workings of the legal system. Life is certainly not easy
being a rookie in the D.A. office. You not only get dissuaded by
deadbeat mentors who tell you that idealism is mere psychobabble
or judges who doze off during your hard-won summation, but you
are also belittled by your own crummy clients.

Worse, you get used by the powers that be. When big-time dope
dealer Jordan Washington (Sheik Mahmoud-Bey) kills two police
officers and wounds another during a drug bust gone awry, the
incensed political animal who is the district attorney,
Morgenstern (Ron Leibman), sees the perfect opportunity in Sean
not only to win the case hands down, but also to shore up his
flagging popularity. The wounded officer, as it turns out, is
Sean's father, Liam (Ian Holm).

Morgenstern is, naturally, a true product of the system, and
his instincts for the jugular are proven acute. His apologetic
and gratitude-mumbling protege rises to the challenge, making
mincemeat of seasoned defense attorney Sam Vigoda (Richard
Dreyfuss) and plonking Washington down where he should be (in the
joint forever).

He becomes a media poster boy and the toast of his profession,
all the way until he becomes, implausibly or otherwise, the D.A.
in what must be the swiftest career rise in legal history.

We also see something else brewing not so visibly. Garcia gets
to reprise his media-parodying Accidental Hero role in which he
metamorphoses from a junkie to a national hero entirely by
default, a role which, incidentally, he is very good at.

Night Falls on Manhattan is no comedy and Sean Casey has, to
an extent, "earned" his way up. But the underlying principle
remains the same: he is being used by the system. We only have
to see the knowing smirk of Jude Ciccolella's acerbic,
"I've-seen-it-all" Internal Affairs interrogator as he addresses
Sean not as the budding D.A., but as the wet-behind-the-ears
college graduate that he also is.

Circumstances turn against Sean, but that's always part of the
deal in a society where everybody uses everybody. Vigoda
reasserts his defense that Washington was acting in self-defense
against corrupt cops who had been receiving steady payoffs from
him. Soon, Sean has to choose between duty and loyalty, job or
family.

That law enforcers have found themselves titillated from time
to time by the promise of money is certainly no novelty to
Hollywood. For Lumet, particularly, this theme is as well-worn as
his career, but one which still retains its relevance. His works,
including Serpico, Prince of the City (which could easily have
been titled "Serpico Revisited"), Dog Day Afternoon, Nework and
Twelve Angry Men are all fables of strengthened idealism in an
atavistic, corrupt system.

Lumet stands unflinching in his focus, never sacrificing his
characters for stylistics, even of the noir kind (smoky veneers,
Kafkaesque proportions, distorted camera angles) that he has
helped make famous. He gives us instead a smart and perceptive
script, and strong three-dimensional characters against the
backdrop of stark realism.

Take Morgenstern, whose explosive monolog represent
conversational candor and gung ho pragmatism at their best.

Liam Casey (Ian Holm) and his partner, Joey Allegretto (James
Gandolfini) charge the scene with mordant realism, totally
believable as screws in the system who have weathered more than
their fair share of doomed monotony.

There is something especially endearing about Holm as he
skillfully combines foul talk, junk-heat-grit and self-
introspection, all tell-tale signs of the ravages of a corrupt
system taking its toll.

Sheik Mahmoud-Bey is downright electrifying as the drug
kingpin. Far from being the circumspect image of justice denied,
there is not an ounce of modesty about him, let alone self-
recrimination. In a remarkable act of self-possession, he
disrobes before the hollering press and demonstrates every inch
of his glorious physique, suggesting he bears no imprint of the
vice he is accused of peddling.

Even Richard Dreyfuss, whose recent CV reeks of cheap parody
roles (remember his laughable take on Bob Dole in The American
President?) gives a mature performance as the Alan Dershowitz-
style defense attorney Vigoda.

In the vortex of forces pulling upon him -- great acting as
well as the gravity of the premise -- the handsome, if slightly
shallow, Garcia fits into the part with good acting that flits
from comic to serious to intense, and profligate charm.

As author Steve Martini once wrote "The criminal side of the
law provides a window on the dark side of life that exists
nowhere else". We already know that the criminal justice system
is unable to prevent innocence from being callously destroyed.

But in the end, as the highest inhabitant of the law
enforcement pecking order reserves the last say, we also know
that the law stands way up there as the foremost designer of
special rules for special people. And we wonder, too, why there
is any morality crisis at all.