The complexity of characterization and the dynamism of the action raise the film above cliché...

Rating: 8/10 (23 October 2008)

Al Pacino plays a cop and an avid hunter who, once he gets a scent of his prey, feels some sort of self-motivation that perpetuates him He is a jackal addicted to this process This is an elevated state of being an intensely eager predator pursuing his prey until he gets him down As strange as it is, as scary as that world is, Lt. Hanna has a social conscience He has a normal spectrum of human feelings He's very authentic in how he loves his life
The fusion of Robert De Niro and Neil McCauley is so total He's committed to the rigidity of that perspective and it's a heartbreaking role It's a tragic character In his world, what he's doing, he feels justified in doing it McCauley has a quiet look at a thief who has a certain kind of lonely disregard for who he kills but yet somehow you're in touch with his humanity We can identify him when all that robbery turns out badly and when his lover Eady (Amy Brenneman) tries to escape from him Brenneman's part was the hope that De Niro's character could have of escape, and love, and forgiveness There's something so sad about these people and so poignant They are so lost, and they want to be found so badlyIt's like a huge opera On one level, the film deals with a crime saga, on the other, with the interpersonal relationships that are woven all these charactersIn the Pacino character and in the De Niro character you're basically seeing two sides of the same tough man