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| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
The filmmaking career of writer-director Joe Carnahan is a checkered
one, having directed and produced many a number of grittier tougher
under-the-radar action thrillers with a tendency towards violence ala William
Friedkin, John Frankenheimer or Martin Scorsese but never receiving the degree
of attention or adulation those aforementioned three have. With his works sometimes nearly going
straight-to-video and/or digital platforms as was the case with both Stretch
and more recently his Hulu film Boss Level, the still clandestine crime
fiction auteur who has had his name attached to numerous sizable projects
including but not limited to writing Bad Boys for Life still managed to
keep operating without compromising his aesthete and seems to press on against
ongoing setbacks.
His second feature, the Detroit, Michigan set crime drama Narc
from 2002, one of his very best and most celebrated films of his career, nearly
fell through the cracks. On a tightly
budgeted 27-day shoot with the two leading stars Jason Patric and Ray Liotta
forfeiting their salaries to keep the project going while Lionsgate wanted to
dump the film on video before Tom Cruise and his business partner Paula Wagner
joined the production and secured a Paramount Pictures wide release, the film became
a lucky find and a minor sleeper hit at the box office. Taking in around $12 million against a $6
million budge, the film helped usher in the career of Joe Carnahan who soon
started taking on bigger mainstream projects like Smokin’ Aces and an
adaptation of the television series The A-Team. Decades later, Arrow Video have circled back
to do-up a deluxe two-disc 4K UHD limited edition of one of the defining crime
films of the early 2000s including plentiful extras including but not limited
to original writing from The Movie Sleuth’s very own Michelle Kisner!
In the snow-covered winter of Detroit resides narcotics cop
Nick Tellis (Jason Patrick from The Lost Boys in the role of his career)
is reeling from an undercover drug bust gone awry and aims for reassignment to
a lowly quiet desk job. In exchange for
reassignment, he reluctantly agrees to go back to work on the streets (much to
the chagrin of his wife and mother of their child at home) alongside Detective
Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) in search of answers regarding the murder of Oak’s
former partner who went undercover himself in the drug trade. Tasked with keeping an eye on Oak who has a
tendency to fly off of the handle with brutal handling of his suspects, their
working dynamic grows steadily more fraught with tension and unease as Nick
grows more suspicious of his newly assigned partner and begins to wonder
whether or not Oak knows more about his partner’s death than he’s telling.
Gritty, unpretentious, direct but also labyrinthine with numerous
twists and turns characteristic of the modern-day neo-noir in a film that gets
the Detroit crime scene right despite much of it being shot in Toronto, Narc
harkens back to the intensely personal crime-soaked character studies that
defined the work of not only the aforementioned Martin Scorsese but Elia Kazan
as well. Take for instance a tense
bloody exchange of fists between Patric and Liotta with Patric carrying himself
with what little strength he has left to his hands and feet and one can’t help
but think of Kazan’s On the Waterfront with Brando staggering to his
feet after a vicious beatdown. Another
film that invariably comes to mind which beat it to the finish line by just a
year is Antoine Fuqua’s Los Angeles set Training Day which also saw a
nearly-paired couple of narcotics officers find themselves on opposite sides of
the fence though both projects complement each other and fulfill a neglected
obligation to the neo-noir crime thriller.
Lensed by Soviet, Moscow based cinematographer Alex Nepomniaschy
of eventual The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel fame, the vision of Detroit is
gritty with a tendency towards desaturated teal-blue ala Steven Soderbergh’s Out
of Sight, making the city feel oppressive, dangerous and vast. The pulsating soundtrack by eventual longtime
Nicolas Winding Refn collaborator Cliff Martinez perfectly suits the Mean Streets
attitude of crime world navigation our two heroes lead us down. Jason Patric has always been really
underrated despite scoring a big hit with The Lost Boys and here he
gives his most nuanced and understated performance, launching into strong
physical acting but largely delivering buried emotions and dismay just with his
eyes. Ray Liotta was already a master of
his craft at this time and having immortalized Henry Hill on film with Goodfellas
it was refreshing to see him on the other side of the criminal fence this time
around.
One of the most underrated and tragically overlooked crime
thrillers of the early 2000s, one of the best portraits of the Detroit narcotics
scene and just a damn good old fashioned cop thriller that develops into
something more unexpected, Narc is an explosively intense release from
Arrow Video marking perhaps one of their essential forthcoming purchases among
cinephiles. Including original
electronic press kits featuring interviews with the filmmakers, cast and even
director William Friedkin as well as newly filmed interviews, the disc comes
mastered with both the original 2.0 stereo-surround mix and a newly created
Dolby Atmos mix which puts you in the literal line of fire. A perfect companion piece to Training Day as
far as modern-day gritty cop thrillers that harken back to two decades before,
the 4K UHD of Narc is a completely welcome addition to the genre and one
that manages to get the city and the crime scene right. Buy with confidence!
--Andrew Kotwicki
