Night Falls on Manhattan

Plot synopsis:
Detectives Liam Casey (Ian Holm) and Joey Allegretto (James Gandolfini) are conducting a surveillance operation to apprehend Jordan Washington (Shiek Mahmud-Bey), a notorious drug dealer. On a tip from an informant, they venture into a building where Washington is presumed to be hiding. Washington preemptively fires a submachine gun through his front door, seriously wounding Casey. Backup arrives to swarm the building, but Washington executes a cunning escape in an NYPD squad car after murdering two police officers, while another officer is killed by friendly fire.
In a surprising move after the suspect's lawyer, Sam Vigoda (Richard Dreyfuss), brings him in, district attorney Morganstern (Ron Leibman) appoints Sean Casey (Andy García), a newly graduated assistant district attorney and Liam Casey's son, to prosecute Washington. Passing over the more experienced executive assistant Elihu Harrison (Colm Feore), Morganstern deliberately picks Casey due to Harrison's expected opposition in the upcoming election for District Attorney.
During the trial, Vigoda does not dispute his client's guilt, but postulates that the police were specifically looking to murder Washington. The defendant corroborates this theory by revealing that he had been bribing certain officers, including one called Kurt Kleinhoff, in return for protection while dealing drugs. Vigoda theorizes that when a rival dealer named Carlos Alvarez offered the officers more money, Washington refused to match it, thus becoming a target. Although inexperienced, Casey mounts a strong argument questioning Washington's credibility and his father provides effective testimony. Casey wins the case, as Washington is sentenced to consecutive life terms without parole.
At the celebration after the win, an associate from Vigoda's legal team, Peggy Lindstrom (Lena Olin), begins an affair with Casey. After Morganstern is incapacitated by a heart attack, Casey is persuaded by the mayor to run for DA. He wins the election. Meanwhile, Kleinhoff's decomposed body is discovered floating near a maritime dock. An address book found at the scene contains the names of several cops from precincts who responded to the Washington shooting. After several interrogations, a number of officers confess about their entanglement in the bribery and narcotics scandal.
Allegretto admits he initially lied about his involvement; he accepted bribes while also plotting to murder Washington with the other corrupt officers killing the third dead officer instead. Berated as "scum" by Casey for his conduct and unwilling to face jail, a depressed Allegretto commits suicide. Liam discloses to his son Sean that he and Allegretto were not legally authorized to arrest Washington due to an expired search warrant. Liam concedes that he forged a judge's signature with a new warrant.
Following an admission of guilt by Liam about the forgery in a private consultation with Judge Dominick Impelliteri (Dominic Chianese), the judge decides to fill out a new warrant and purposely obviates the technicality. He also suggests to Sean that he destroy the invalid warrant. The film ends with Casey giving the introductory lecture for a new class of assistant district attorneys, urging them to approach their job with diligence.

Tags: neo noir, murder

Review:
In "Night Falls on Manhattan", Garcia plays a rookie NYC District Attorney who finds himself struggling to cope with moral dilemmas and compromised principles in the "real world" of lawyering.
Offering a solid cast with good performances, this Hollywood tinged  film builds quickly and maintains momentum while digging into fundamental issues which bedevil characters from cops to judges in their  personal and professional lives.
But, there are those, like the one depicted here, that are essential, not for justice, but for the political ambitions of the DA and Mayor.Sidney Lumet (Find Me Guilty, Dog Day Afternoon) likes working with ethical questions, and he did a good job here in presenting a world that is not black and white, but gray.I generally do not like Andy Garcia (Ocean's Eleven, The Godfather Part III) or Ron Leibman (Zorro, the Gay Blade), but that may be because of their politics off the screen.
But, there were a lot of good stars in this film: Sir Ian Holm (Chariots of First) as Garcia's father, James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) as a corrupt cop and Holm's partner, Richard Dreyfuss (Mr. Holland's Opus, The Goodbye Girl, Jaws) as a liberal lawyer, Colm Feore (Bon Cop, Bad Cop, The Red Violin, Chicago) as an ADA that wants the top job, and Lena Olin (Enemies: A Love Story, Chocolat, "Alias") as the love interest.Very good acting throughout and a compelling story..
I liked this film, this is not a great movie but it's a good one, and the most important thing was that it didn't bore me for a moment.The performances are good, the plot is interesting and clever.
What I didn't like about it was that the shots of the film looked like a movie made for TV.The plot is about how Sean Casey ,an assistant district attorney working for just six months, improves very fast in his way up at his job but he is going to discover many dirty things about policemen and politics and is at this point where he will have to make difficult decisions that will put in text his principles.If you like intelligent police or court movies, this one is for you..
NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN (1997) *** Andy Garcia, Richard Dreyfuss, Ian Holm, Lena Olin, James Gandolfini, Ron Leibman, Shiek Mahmud-Bey.
Excellent, gritty and absorbing crime drama dealing with Garcia as an assistant  DA who becomes an overnight sensation after tackling a disturbing case of a drug dealer killing three cops on a raid gone awry that leads to a sticky web of corruption, lies, deceit and ultimately personal integrity.
Garcia and Holm as his cop father, give superb performances as does Leibman as his teeth gnashing mentor (a delightful to watch turn) and Gandolfini as Holm's partner with some skeletons in his closet.
Sydney Lumet's Night Falls On Manhattan is the kind of morally complex, daring, emotionally charged, all out classic that most films of its type wish they could be.
Andy Garcia, an actor I usually don't like too much, is excellent as an idealistic young law grad who suddenly finds himself in the spotlight when the trigger happy hound dog DA (Ron Leibmann in a hilarious, manic, spellbinding performance) chooses him to prosecute a murderous drug kingpin who gunned down several police officers and badly wounded one who happens to be Garcia's father (Ian Holm).
When they finally caught him (an old family relative snicthced on him), false accusations were brought up by the police and the media to portray him as a ruthless thug who ran away after killing the cops when all he wanted to do was leave the organization involving crooked cops and drug dealers.
He is still serving time in Rikers Island fighting for a new trial.Check out the documentary called THE LARRY DAVIS STORY which won an award for Best Documentary in the Urbanworld Film Festival in 2003.However, it serves well on film and Sidney Lumet is great act capturing the look and feel of NYC in the early 90's.
I really have no idea what motivates Sidney Lumet's choice of movies to do, even though I've read his book "Making Movies," which sheds a lot of light on his decision making process.If I had to take a guess, I might say that perhaps he wants a variety, and doesn't calculate the risk involved with certain works that have obviously turned out to be major flops.
It might be considered standard fare or even dated a bit by some and as a result, not as powerful as it might be otherwise, but it is a good example of Sidney Lumet's better filmmaking and not a bad story to boot.Dig Colm Feore's role here.
A newly elected district attorney (Andy Garcia) finds himself in the middle of a police corruption investigation that may involve his father (Ian Holm) and his partner.This was a pretty good film.
Things proceed so smoothly in the first hour for our young hero that you just know that embarrassing revelations are going to come crashing down around him in the second hour, which they do.This is familiar turf for veteran filmaker Sidney Lumet, and he has made a fairly compelling film, despite the miscasting of British Holm and Cuban Garcia as father and son, respectively, although Holm does manage an amazingly authentic Queens accent.
Richard Dreyfuss is pretty good in a surprisingly small role as the drug dealers's Dershowitz-like defense attorney, who turns out to be more willing to bend the rules than you would expect, considering his primary motive for taking the case..
Andy Garcia is a great actor, but casting a Cuban American as an Irish American (Sean Casey), is too much of a stretch.
Otherwise a fine film about New York police, divided loyalties, the illegal drug business, the corruption drug money makes possible, and the ethical consequences that involve everyone knowing of the crimes committed.
"Night Falls on Manhattan" contains a good plot from the novel by Robert Daley and has a strong supporting cast with James Gandolfini, Richard Dreyfuss, Lena Olin, Dominic Chianese, Shiek Mahmud-Bey, and Paul Guilfoyle..
"Night Falls on Manhattan" seems like a rather generic title for a film that explores the gray area of political and law enforcement corruption.
The acting is good, with special mention going to Andy Garcia, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ron Leibman.
After a bang bang beginning, the rest of the movie quietly explores who's on the take, and the back room deals necessary to bring corrupt cops to justice.
Corruption runs high in a few cop beats, where Garcia's cop father (Holm, really good) is shot badly by a burst of machine gun fire, when a drug bust goes bad.
Even Garcia's father could be bad too like his partner and childhood mate, Joey (the late great Gandofini) a modest performance.
Garcia, an ex cop, now a promising lawyer, is assigned to this criminal case, by Leibman who runs a law firm, to the disgust and anger of a slick lawyer adversary, Colm Feore (just another top form performance here), where the big black drug dealer, a nasty piece of work in a quite threatening performance, by Shiek Mahmud- Bey is caught, so it's really gonna get heated in that courtroom, where you don't want this black dude mad.
The turning point or second story, let's call it, takes off when a black book is recovered from one of the dead cops in that failed bust, a number of cops names including Holm's, all supposedly on the take are in there, and things get really juicy, plot wise, which sees Garcia back in the court room.
The film is very well written, all of it, it's treatment, etc, all shaped to perfection, solely by Lumet, the first scene in the lecture room, with budding lawyers, grabbing us straight away, with in your face frankness.
The film has a very well researched feel, Garcia's performance though, not as good as the others.
Highly underrated and very much recommended cop/courtroom drama, Dreyfuss's performance as the black guy's defendant, the one you'll remember.
If you enjoy straight-up, old-style dirty cop/courtroom stories, this may be the last of the great ones, filmed in 1997.
And wow, what a cast: Andy Garcia, Ian Holm, Lena Olin, Richard Dreyfuss, James Gandolfini, Dominic Chianese.
The acting is great but the casting of Andy Garcia as the son of Ian Holm is a bit of a stretch.
James Gandolfini and Richard Dreyfuss are totally credible in their respective roles as cop and defense attorney.
All in all with Sidney Lumet directing this is a worthy film and if you live in New York City you will appreciate it even more..
Sure, Ebert and other failed-novelist intellectuals will cream over this movie ---"Roger, a big thumbs up, its a tough insightful look into the criminal justice system." All it gives you an insight into is the right-wing hysteria of that noted auteur of the courtroom, Sidney Lumet.
His flamboyant, crazed-radical criminal defense lawyer(is there really any other kind in the world of Hollywood?) whines that the baddie had no choice but to gun down the cops since they were involved in the drug rackets with him and they were aiming to blow him away first.Of course, this is an absolutely ludicrous argument, but Lumet urges us to take it seriously so that when the conviction comes down, we can rejoice, Himmler-style, in the grandeur of the thin blue line.
What a hack.Probably the most offensive moment in the film comes when our fearless young protagonist, assistant DA Sean Casey (Andy Garcia) meets with the crazed-radical criminal defense attorney Vigoda (Richard Dreyfuss).
While they are both in a steam room with wet towels draped over their shoulders (a Roman motif or a bit of unacknowledged homo erotica?), Vigoda confesses that he too has a deep affection for LAW AND ORDER and he solemnly intones, "Sometimes I think that we have to give up on an entire generation and lock them up and throw away the key." Well, you don't need to read to carefully between the lines for the answer to "A generation of whom?" Why those bad minorities of course who Vigoda and Casey agree, sotte voce, must be dealt with harshly, given that their naughty drug dealing and assorted criminality upset National Security State, which of course putters along fine in the face of corporate scandals.
The day that Sidney Lumet whines about the corporate scandals that have engulfed our society is the day that I begin to take him seriously.Sidney Lumet, in The Verdict, Q and A, Prince of the City, and now Night Falls on Manhattan, along with other "tough and gritty" movies, has demonstrated that he a vulgar buffoon is incapable of or unwilling to learn about the American legal system.
As every Lumet film I have seen, it touches interesting topics with a non-conventional way.
Topics here are big drug-dealers & police corruption (again), law system, as well as others.But I have to say that his CRITICAL CARE (1997, same year) was FAR better , at least for my taste.
Sidney Lumet has done something that I wasn't sure was possible in this age of instant, formulaic gratification: make a riveting cop movie without a car chase and a courtroom thriller without cheap theatrics.
Andy Garcia stumbles in this drama about an idealistic cop-turned-lawyer who prosecutes a celebrated case in which several cops are shot by a drug kingpin.It so happens that Garcia's pop is one of the cops, and it so happens that Garcia goes up against a flamboyant defense attorney (played believably by Richard Dreyfuss).While the film has its interesting moments and a modicum of drama, it is crippled by Garcia's over-the-top acting.
Despite classical lawyer against illegal police dept scenario, Andy Garcia allow us to watch the movie.
Only Gandolfini is successful in this familiar style of film from Sidney Lumet.
To its credit, the movie had great actors, a complex and intelligent plot, and something of a message which is not a bad thing in these days of mindless chase and fight scenes as the norm for cop movies.
The cast of this character-driven film is played to perfection by Andy Garcia, James Gandolfini, Lena Olin, Shiek Mahmud-Bey, Ian Holm, Ron Leibman, Richard Dreyfuss, Sam Vigoda and Paul Guilfoyle.
One is between a father and son, the other is the love story between Andy Garcia and Lena Olin that survives this very tense and complex situation in a film about an important subject.
"Night Falls On Manhattan" is a fascinating movie about police corruption, political rivalries and personal loyalties and the ways in which they affect the workings of the justice system in New York City.
Officers from three precincts respond to the call for assistance but the operation ends disastrously as Casey is shot and critically injured, three other officers are killed and the drug dealer, Jordan Washington (Shiek Mahmud-Bey), embarrassingly manages to escape in an NYPD squad car.Washington, under the supervision of his lawyer, Sam Vigoda (Richard Dreyfuss) turns himself in to the police and New York D.A. Morgenstern (Ron Leibman) swiftly appoints one of his most junior assistants, Sean Casey (Andy Garcia) to prosecute the case.
Andy Garcia does a good job of conveying the range of emotions that Sean goes through on his journey from being an impractical idealist to achieving the kind of maturity that enables him to navigate his way through some difficult situations.
Ian Holm and James Gandolfini are also very good in their supporting roles."Night Falls On Manhattan" is a criminally under-appreciated film that's not only thought-provoking, intelligent and realistic but also thoroughly entertaining to watch..
Well, I saw "Night Falls on Manhattan" last week, and one thing that really impressed me was the GREAT acting.
We have a nice story going on, which involves corruption, honesty and justice, but what makes this film really interesting is the performance of Ron Leibman.
As soon as Dreyfuss and the black dealer show up, the cops go ape, bust the windows of the car, and beat the crap out of the dealer as they drag him away like a lynch mob gone wild.Newbie District Attorney, Andy Garcia, wins the case against the dealer, who is sentenced to life without parole.
And when he begins to look into the context in which the shoot out occurred -- the dealer trying to save himself from crooked cops out to kill him -- the trail is long and winding and eventually the cool arms of the law begin to enfold his own father.By this time, I'm thinking, "By Gad, this is Sidney Lumet territory!" Not just because of the subject -- police corruption and torn allegiances on the streets of New York -- but because of the detached style in which this dramatic material is handled.It was, of course, directed by Sidney Lumet, who has an indisputable feel for this sort of stuff.
But, in any case, trying to rank order movies is a hopeless task, each film being made up of its own unique dimensions -- casting, photography, score, performances, locations, and so forth.Still, Lumet's series on cops in New York is so much better than the typical kind of Manichean garbage on today's screens -- one impeccable hero against an army of venomous villains, not one of whom even has a stamp collection, just money, power, broads, and evil intent.
Night Falls on Sidney Lumet..
Night Falls on Manhattan (1996): Dir: Sidney Lumet / Cast: Andy Garcia, Ian Holm, Richard Dreyfuss, James Gandolfini, Lena Olin: There are no surprises in this film.
Andy Garcia is the son of the injured officer who runs for District Attorney.
Ian Holm plays Garcia's father who recovers from injury but rendered innocent due to questionable law.
Themes regard police corruption as when night falls on Manhattan the true nature of these people come into view.
Andy Garcia plays Sean Casey a lawyer turned District Attorney who is tasked with prosecuting the man that was responsible for shooting his father Liam Casey (Ian Holm) after Casey and his partner Joey Allegretto (James Gandolfini) attempt to arrest drug king pin Jordan Washington (Sheik Mahmud-Bey).
However at Washington's trial he reveals some home truths about police corruption which makes this case not quite as open and shut as Casey anticipated.I think a major problem with a film like Night Falls on Manhattan is that it has such an explosive opening that it's almost inevitable that everything that follows is going to be an anti-climax.
Despite how good this aspect of the film was this still brought about some problems....We're told that Casey Jr will be prosecuting the man who shot his father even though he's never worked on a big case before.
Despite the fact that this aspect of the film entertained me I struggled to find Casey Jr's character to be believable.The film really falls flat on its face after Washington's trial where we're left with about 55 minutes of divulging through all of the elements of police corruption, a ridiculous, bland and unconvincing romance.
The police corruption aspect is interesting in itself, but Lumet seemed to offer very little commentary on the subject and with virtually nothing driving the film in the second half it does become quite dull and tedious.As far as performances go it's really down to Garcia to carry the film and in this respect he's only partly successful; when tough-talking is required he's great, but he shows very little vulnerability and wasn't great in scenes that require him to show emotion.
Leibman was by the far the worst offender and his over-acting was unbearable for the most part.I don't want to pan this film too much as I appreciate and respect that Lumet was trying to explain that not everything in life is 'black and white' and that sometimes those that are meant to uphold and enforce the law can invariably be worse than those that are on trial, but sadly this only really hits home at the end.