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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 14320
Released: May 22, 2007 |
| Our Price: $11.54 |
| Used Price: $10.88 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/22/2007 Run time: 167 minutes
Description of Prince of the City (Two-Disc Special Edition):
Based on a true story, Prince of the City stars Treat Williams as Danny Ciello, a conflicted New York cop who reluctantly decides to go undercover for the feds to ferret out police corruption. At first, he recklessly gets off on the danger, but as the feds tighten the screws, the guilt-wracked Ciello is forced to compromise his partners and friends, and his own checkered past inexorably catches up with him.
Sidney Lumet, who also directed Networkand Dog Day Afternoon, is esteemed as an actor's director. This film is prime evidence. The peerless ensemble, including Jerry Orbach, Bob Balaban, and a duty roster of great New York character actors, is flawless. If there was any justice in Hollywood, Prince of the City would have been Treat Williams's star-making breakthrough, his Serpico (which Lumet also directed). But this film couldn't get arrested at the box office and was criminally snubbed by the Academy. Due to its length and gritty, profane dialogue, it is severely compromised when broadcast on network TV. For fans of NYPD Blue, Law & Order and Homicide, here is a movie ripe for discovery on home video. --Donald Liebenson
Prince of the City (Two-Disc Special Edition) Reviews:
2 Thumbs Up! 
2008-10-10 - Received the DVD in great condition. Two Thumbs Way Up!
~Rich C.
"The Law Doesn't Know The Streets"
2008-08-31 - A righteous cop who's a bit on the take trades the partners who love him for the system that uses him in the second of Lumet's NY Cops Quartet. Lumet and Jay Presson Allen have written such a complex yet great script that at times you wish it got the more cinematic dimensions that Scorsese could bring to it as opposed to Lumet's dramatic but austere approach. In the docs here he discusses his ambivalence towards the main character and you get that watching the film. He's never given the point of view allowed to Pacino's Serpico or Paul Newman's Frank Galvin. As a result Treat Williams is all over the place. He's great in some scenes and in other he's just too much. (There's even an odd bit where he seems to be doing a Steve Martin imitation.) Still, this powerful and moving picture (and Williams' performance) deserve a better reputation that it's had over the years. It packs a bigger punch than Serpico -- also a great picture.
And this really deserves to be revisited alongside American Gangster which covers much of the same territory. (I assume the character of "The King" here is based on Frank Lucas.)
Giant company of actors with almost no miscues -- though Bob Balaban's weird and officious Disraeli-haired Fed is a bit distracting.
Long time coming...!
2008-04-30 - This movie is one to see! If you like drama, suspense and true-life stories, then this is a movie to see. I had it a long time on VHS and wanted to replace it on DVD. I'm so glad it finally made it to digital.
another sidney lumet classic
2008-04-07 - treat williams stars as a conflicted cop who decides to ease his conscious by providing information on crooked cops, but "not my own partners, never". however, as his disclosures increase, he is pressured by the justice department to turn on his partners. sidney lumet ("dog day afternoon") does a masterful job of portraying the guilt, shame and conflcit expereinced by cops who must do illegal activites in order to get convictions. treat williams is perfect in the role of "danny", the cop who wants to do the right thing but has no idea of the forces he is dealing with. once you cross over, you can't go back. this is one of my top 10 "desert island' picks of amercian made films. you will be most impressed as I was in this film
What Made Him Turn? 
2008-02-26 - I just saw it. It wasn't bad, but also wasn't the most entertaining movie I've ever seen. Perhaps, "entertaining" was not the cheif objective here. A lot of work went into it obviously, and I could appreciate that, though at times the movie was kind of a frustrating ordeal, not only for the main character but for me as well. It was hard to really feel his need for redemption to begin with. We know he's somewhat on the take, in the beginning, but we're not really brought to the point of feeling the anguish that brings him to want to turn informant. This happens soon after the movie begins and we're left reeling in the next two plus hours with his decision. Really, we are given a few brief incidents (he helps a junkie get smack, and his own brother accuses him of too lavish a lifestyle) - then bam - he wants to talk to the D.A.
Through endless court indictments and the eventual revealing of his own misdeeds, we learn about some of the things which may have brought New York cop, Danny Ciello, to the point of wanting to turn informant (though by that point in the movie he's probably regretting having done so). But telling is one thing. Showing is another. I'd have sympathized more with his whole struggle if I'd been SHOWN stronger reason in the beginning for his wanting to turn, which in the eyes of his colleagues, and even the viewers at times, seems like a weak betrayal - perhaps a character problem rather than an issue of conscience.
As an idea, the dilemma is readily apparent (between what he and indeed the whole legal system deem is right, and the practical realities of the street). Prince of the City is the study of a man who makes an incredibly daring decision and the aftermath that follows. While on an emotional level, it never completely made me understand his decision, it does explore an issue well worth exploring and leaves us to reach our own conclusions.
