he jarring images and in-the-moment acting that litter Joe Carnahan’s spellbinding sophomore film, Narc, are absolutely necessary in this day and age of film. There has been little to entice this reviewer into a movie theater over the past year and a half, and what I’ve seen has only strengthened my resolve to stay away. But what appeared to lie within this film was far too intriguing to ignore. A tightly budgeted film that often was stopped for days due to lack of finances. On the fly filming, often employing ordinary people being placed in scenes with the film’s lead actors. A feeling of the type of hardcore cop film that hasn’t been made in far too long, examples of which would be Serpico, The French Connection and Year Of The Dragon. Two powerfully adept actors who have been saddled with sub par material for far too long (Jason Patric and Ray Liotta) looking as vital and alive as they have in any of their best work. But most of all, a film that seemed to have an undeniable energy that no amount of publicity hype over the last minute producing by a superstar (Tom Cruise) could derail. A liveliness that has been sorely missing in a world where mega-budgets and idiocy have more than prevailed, they are the standing order for nearly every single film today.


Jason Patric plays Nick Tellis, an undercover narcotics cop who we first see chasing a suspect. The suspect is armed with two hypodermic needles filled with a lethal concoction that end up at the throat of a child. The chase leading up to this confrontation is one of the more amped and nerve racking ever caught on film. Taking a chance to shoot the suspect before any harm can come to the child, he accidentally shoots a pregnant mother as well, causing her to lose the baby and, in turn, filling Tellis with a sense of grief that lingers eighteen months later. At first shunning the idea of being allowed to come back to the force if he helps out with the investigation of a slain police officer, something gnaws at Tellis’ psyche to bring him back. As someone with an addictive nature, one that saw him become dependent on the very drugs he was working to stamp out, perhaps it is the job he is ultimately addicted to. Which is the very thing he and Lieutenant Henry Oak have in common. Oak is a bull of a man with a penchant for battering his victims, but, with a 93% conviction rate to his credit, the brass in charge would rather wait for him to get stuck in something before daring to reign him in. He is a man that, in his words, “became a better cop when she (his wife) died”. No more fear of what was behind a door or if he were to be killed. Oak is a man seemingly without anything to live for, with the exception of his job.


As the movie progresses, secrets are revealed, “truths” are told and the two men continue a very tenuous relationship, one that could falter or strengthen with each passing moment. There is not a single moment where you get the sense that these are anything but two real people engaging in real time events. The wild look that Liotta gets in his eyes makes the viewer remember how powerful he can be. From his galvanizing debut as Ray in Something Wild, to what should have been a career making performance as the central character in Good Fellas, Liotta is an actor that can make an audience feel as if anything could happen. His outward take on the character, bulked up and sporting a graying, thick goatee, is almost unnecessary, in the fact that Liotta is intimidating all on his own. Patric meanwhile goes internal in his portrayal of Tellis as a man wracked with guilt over the accidental shooting of the unborn child. His sense of loss permeates every ounce of his being, and, as he gets deeper into the case he initially swore off, he gets further away from the calm center he had found in his time off from the job. Just like his days stuck inside an undercover shell, he is hooked, and the ultimate fix is to catch the ones responsible for the slain officer.


The film’s final act is riveting in a way in which so few endings are these days. Due to the investment the audience has in the characters, there is far more at stake than your typical cop flick. What goes on in those final twenty minutes are disturbing in its graphic brutality, in its emotional honesty and in the sheer terror of the knowledge that things like this happen every day in this country. That the truth is twisted to such an extent to cause a desired outcome, no matter what the consequences may be, is horrifying to consider. Further, what does one do with something as powerful as the truth? Would yelling it from the rafters for all to hear be the way to go? Or should the truth remain hidden, to protect others? What is honesty ultimately worth?