BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

wilsonstuart-32346 Coming in at thee hours,Prince of The City must rate as one of the longest films I've seen; and it's certainly one of the best New York cop thrillers out; maybe one of the best cop thrillers, period. Sidney Lumet picks up and develops from the earlier themes he started with Al Pacino in Serpico - although the moral certainties displayed in that film are noticeably absent here.Based on Robert Daley's novel of the same name, and the experiences of cop turned crime novelist - lecturer the late Bob Leuci, Prince of The City makes compelling viewing. Detective Danny Ciello of NYPD's Special Investigation Unit - specialising in narcotics and organised crime; working city wide with no external supervision, one character notes, starts to experience a series of qualms about the more ''unorthodox' aspects of his work. After a couple of false starts, he agrees to cooperate with a federal commission, under the illusion he can pick and choose his targets and keep his partners in the clear.He soon finds that much more will be expected of him and that his new colleagues are neither reliable or trustworthy.Treat Williams puts in a first class performance as the increasingly tormented Ciello, the late Jerry Orbach is a powerhouse as the partner (one of several) he will betray. Danny's decisions have tragic implications for his family, colleagues and associates. Yet his hands are not clean - sooner or later he will have to face the consequences of some earlier actions....despite his less than truthful accounts.Prince of The City protrays the problems of policing a big city, perhaps any big city, with a gritty realism that most police procedurals only dream about - perhaps rivalled only by The French Connection. It's a having an exhaust journey into man's descent into a foggy morass of grey morality, where nothing is what it appears...and the uncertain redemption that follows.

keachs I remember watching this many years ago, probably on TV, soon after it came out. It's always been on my mind and I watched it again over the last two evenings. I am just in awe of the powerful story, great acting and the gritty setting of this amazing film. To this day, I cannot believe Sidney Lumet never won an Oscar for best director for all the other great films of his: Twelve Angry Men, Serpico, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, and this masterpiece. With no special effects, no big name actors, no sex, Mr. Lumet has me glued to the screen for nearly three hours. I agree with the other reviewer that this is in the class of the great ones like the Godfather, On the Waterfront, Raging Bull, along with the French Connection, and Serpico. It's a shame that only a minuscule percentage of the IMDb population even has heard or seen films like these from this era, where films were truly an art form, rather than the commercial vehicle that they have become today.

j3inpenn (Warning, Spoilers within) I haven't seen a movie about cops before or since this was made that is as great as this. This is probably Treat Williams best role. The bond that the policeman have in this movie is amazing. It is painful to watch some of the things happen, that happen. The other performances are great too. The late Jerry Orbach is great, as well as Carmine Caridi (an underrated actor), who plays a crooked detective. I found it to be an exciting and very tense and very sad film, as it showed all of the different characters. Between the cops and the prosecutors and the mobsters and the bail bondsmen and and the judges, drug dealers and the junkies, nobody seemed to be relaxed. Everybody is on edge, which makes them scary and dangerous to be around. Considering that the song "Love will keep us together", by Captain and Tennelle, is on the soundtrack was interesting to me. If you watch the film you will see what I mean. This film definitely needs to be talked about in the future when the late Sidney Lumet's career is discussed. He did a great job directing it.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Overly long and ponderous crime drama involving an elite squad of New York City detectives who take the law into their own hands in fighting the drug epidemic that pledged the Big Apple back in the 1970's. The way these elite cops fight crime is by ripping off the drug dealers that they bust and then, being illegal aliens, ship them off on the first boat or plane back to their native country.With the Chase Commission breathing down corrupt cops necks one of the members of this elite group of law enforcers Danny Ciello, Treat Williams, seeing the writing on the wall decides to come clean. Danny will talk and use a wire but only on dirty politicians and lawyers, as well as D.A's, but not cops especially those cops, or partners, that he works with. This very "high and noble" effort on Danny's part, which was really to save his own hide, has him record hundreds of conversations between him as well as lawyers hoodlums and junkies that in the end would result in some 30 convictions. Danny also gets all of the members of his elite squad indited with the exception of the weak willed and suicidal Officer Bill Mayo ( Don Billett), who ended up blowing his brains out, for crimes that Danny himself committed!It's hard to work up any sympathy for the cops in the movie "Prince of the City" in not only how greedy corrupt as well as, when they's riding high, arrogant they are but how totally lacking and unwilling their in taking their punishment when caught! This to the point of giving up their best friends or partners to the Chase Commission inquisitors in order to save themselves.Danny who's supposed to be the hero in the movie is so gutless and wimpy when he's caught with his hand in the cookie jar, by perjuring himself 40 times after he supposedly came clean, that it seems like the biggest crime in the movie is him getting off Scot-free in the end! Were told by the D.A's office that the only reason that Danny was sprung was that by inditing and convicting him after ratting on his own fellow cops, as well as other members of the law enforcement community, no one like him, a corrupt cop who gets nabbed, will come forward in the future to do the very same thing! Way to go Danny Boy!The movie goes into the sleazy business of cops being drug suppliers to junkies to get information on their suppliers which in fact is who the police are! We see a number of hair-rising scenes of junkies going into convulsions and almost dropping dead because they can't get their fix that are as disturbing as anything you'll see in a slasher horror movie. Danny who's arrogance and false bravado in showing how tough, as well as stupid, he is has him expose himself to his fellow cops as well as the hoodlums that he's secretly recording. This, with his cover now completely blown, has Danny become such a crying sorry a** of a man that even his old lady Clara,Lindsay Crouse, has in the end far more male testosterone's then he does. The at first macho, where things were going his way, Danny Ciello turns into a Valium popping crybaby by the time the movie is just about over when he gets his big moment testifying in open court. Danny by then afraid of his own shadow needs to get himself up to testify by downing at least three Valium tablets, chased down with a couple shots of scotch, just to get on the stand!The most telling scene in the movie has to do with Danny having a talk with his Mafia Uncle Nick's, Ronald Maccone, good friend Mafia soldier Rocky Gazzo, Tony Munafo, who incidentally Danny was setting up by secretly recording their conversation. Rocky somehow sensing what a back-stabbing wimp Danny is tells him right to his face what he, which the movie proves, never would dream of doing. Do you think I'm afraid of going to jail! I spent half may life behind bars and most of the time I spent there was for keeping my mouth shut and not ratting out my friends Rocky tells Danny. That's something that Danny as well as the sh*t-kicking elite members of his drug-busting unit would never have the guts, even to spend one day behind bars, to do.