TIFF Reaction: PRIDE AND GLORY

Films selected as TIFF Galas are becoming an increasingly puzzling phenomenon. One would think that those twenty presentations at Roy Thompson Hall would be held for the cream of the festival crop. But it just isn’t so. Here’s a detail that is supposed to be on the down low, but a detail that most festival-goers have long since figured out:

The movies that can provide the most amount of photo-friendly star power, regardless of quality, get the galas.

Case in point – PRIDE AND GLORY.

The movie is a cop story featuring Edward Norton and Colin Farrel as police officers who have four men in their precinct gunned down in a drug raid. As the department digs in to avenge the loss, ugly truths about the slaying comes to light. The movie tries to grind out a tale of right and wrong, of family and sacrifice. Note the word tries. After taking a pretty good turn about halfway home, the movie degenerates into something formulaic and outright laughable.

I’m a pretty big fan of crime movies myself, and don’t count myself as being above wanting to see them at TIFF. Matter of fact, the second festival movie I ever saw was TRAINING DAY. I enjoyed that screening experience and still love the movie to this day. However, there’s no reason for a big budget to excuse a good story (more the opposite actually). The movie was reportedly shelved for some time to give itself distance from other similar releases. If you ask me, it was shelved because it wasn’t much good.

Along with being a fan of crime movies, I count myself as a fan of both ed Norton and Colin Farrel. But I’m not so much of a fan that I’ll turn a blind eye when they hand me a movie that doesn’t cut it. No matter how much press gathered to take in their red carpet premiere.

This was the final showing of PRIDE AND GLORY at TIFF 08. New Line will be releasing the film everywhere on October 24th. This is a film I’d probably advise waiting for DVD.