NARC: Arrow Video 4K Blu-Ray Review
8 min. read
I’ve seen most of Joe Carnahan’s filmography at this point. With any luck, I’ll be able to come across some of his earlier stuff. At least this way, I can better gauge his early creative trajectory at some point in the future, including his second directorial offering, Narc, which remains a celebrated modern classic among cinephiles.
Actor Ray Liotta certainly did his diligence there. He divulges as much, and more in EPK footage now included in this month’s release of the modern crime hit on 4K/Blu-Ray from Arrow Video. Actor Tom Cruise ekes in a producer credit behind the lens alongside Diane Nabatoff, Michelle Grace and Julius R. Nasso. The movie was strategically shot in Toronto as the prominent backdrop of the film’s setting in Detroit, with the remainder of the movie shot mostly guerilla-style for a day in the latter city.
Narc immediately takes off with a brutal footchase witn Nick Tellis (Jason Patric), a Detroit detective in pursuit of a perpetrator who assaults two innocent bystanders, killing one. The second, a pregnant woman who ends up miscarrying, becomes the center of scruitny Tellis faces from the department in a hearing eighteen months later. With his career hanging in the balance, he finally gets the gamble he needs to land a desk job with the help of police captain, Cheevers (Chi McBride).
The task in question? Solve the murder of an undercover cop, reportedly shot dead in a tunnel by two drug dealers one rainy day. His investigation partners him with Henry Oak (Ray Liotta), a Lieutenant with a mean streak and short temper whose name is also mentioned in the case file. The good news, at least, is that Tellis is closer to a safer work beat as preferred by loving wife Audrey (Krista Bridges), with whom he shares a child.
With this prospect brings the obligatory downside to the job of being a cop. The inevitable pressure it puts on their marriage is a testament to what was once their happily ever after, and not for nothing either, with Tellis ever so attentive to details and making decisions pertinent to his investigation outside Oak’s own parameters.
Narc gets even more intriguing and violent along the way as Tellis inches closer in piecing the details together. The result is an explosive climax revealing a shocking cover-up, one that inevitably puts one of his own under the microscope, in a dark tale of blaring corruption, twisted heroism, and redemption.
Carnahan’s Narc carried over pretty well for me at the time of its release. My first watch with a cast led by Patric was Barry Levinson’s Sleepers. I never saw Speed 2: Cruise Control after that (even to this day), but Narc was a worthwhile VHS watch, and proved to be just as entertaining then as it is now, as is Patric’s performance on screen.
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The subject matter certainly preserves its shelflife as it deals in the dark allure of crime and the subjective allusions of what it means to be a cop – at least from a cinematic and storyesque standpoint. The late Liotta is a reverent presence on screen in this regard, contributing immensly to a story that definitely gets its hands dirty in some areas other cop procedurals probably wouldn’t today (I reckon depending on the director).
The commentary is another great listen, going into Carnahan’s method for crafting Narc from start to finish, noting certain shot choices and styles. He notes the opening chase sequence with Patric front and center was filmed using a stuntman operating a camera and who was able to keep up with Patric for at first leg of the shot. Cinematography like that is a verifiable miss nowadays, but as pretext to a frenzied cop drama rife with horrors and heartbreak, it’s forgiveable enough in that it contributes a little something to the unnerving atmosphere Narc invites us into.
At one point early on, Carnahan jokes with editor John Gilroy about making up random shit during the commentary to make it more intersting. Alas, whether its the fence-like fixture the director mentions using for a restaurant scene between Patric and Liotta, a close-up of a hand applying a signature, or the high fever he says Patric endured while filming the movie’s big climax, you’re free to flip a coin on what’s true and what isn’t in terms of the trivia.
All the remaining bonus features of Arrow’s release of Narc can be found on the second disc, host to a bundle of interviews. The first of four recent interviews filmed is “Shattering The Blue Line,” in which Carnahan talks about the movie, starting with how it was conceived leapfrogging off of a short he directed in college called “Gunpoint” based on a documentary by Errol Morris, and how the subject matter stuck with him enough to inspire the screenplay it is today. Director of photography Alex Nepomniaschy follows suit with “Shooting Narc,” lending a detailed perspective of working with Carnahan to achieve the vision he wanted, from lensing to lighting, set pieces and more.
“Krista Bridges: If You Live Another” Day is next on the slate in which the Canadian actress, who plays Nick Tellis’s wife, Audrey in Narc, chronicles how she met Carnahan, working her way into the role, and working intimately with Patric and their characters’ baby on screen. Per the title, a crucial point Bridges goes into is the time lapse between the film’s completion, and her first screening about a year or so later, and how personal life experiences play into an actor’s perceptions of performances, and how differently they might be from what was on screen.
The bonus feats go on with “The Journey of the Costume,” wherein costume designer Gersha Phillips talks up her entry in the film business beginning in fashion, and then segueing from storework and fabrics, and then into assistant work via Norman Jewison’s institute. She also goes into how the weather and the film’s star caliber and how those factored into her experience on Narc. In addition, she mentions being a fan of Liotta’s films, preceding one hilarious moment where Liotta would joke about her just wanting to meet co-star Busta Rhymes, of whom she’s also a fan.
Archival featurettes outline a sub-menu that contains four making-of featurettes, first of which is “Making the Deal,” which pertains to the film’s development and the casting of Liotta, and more for its thirteen-minute duration. “The Visual Trip,” also thirteen minutes long, explores the styles and choices in the film’s photography from camerawork to coloring, as well as Carnahan’s credits with handheld style as a creatively feasible AND pratical method of filming the movie. “The Friedkin Connection” is a ten-minute featurette host to the late The French Connection and Criusin’ director who in part delineates the ways in which Carnahan’s film compares to his own, in contrast to others’ works, earning its praise in the process. The last, “Shooting Up,” lends twenty minutes to segments with the cast and crew discussing the production and its various challenges with budget, akin to others like it in the industry, as well as paying the crew. At one point Carnahan spotlights the opening footchase, detailing that he threw out a dozen camera setups and adding “we pretty much used everything we shot”.
The bonus disc follows up with more than four hours of EPK interviews with Carnahan, Nabatoff, Nepomniaschy, Liotta, Patric, and Friedkin. A good deal of this footage is seen in the aforementioned featurettes, but these are all top-to-bottom for our enjoyment.
Rounding out the disc is a theatrical trailer for Narc, and an image gallery that lends solidly to Arrow’s packaging and making a guaranteeable and promising purchase for any physical collector and fan of the crime genre. In addition to the film, the package contains hours of interviews with the cast and crew, all contained in a reversible sleeve with new and original commissioned artwork by Nathanael Marsh, a double-sided poster with Marsh’s ink, an illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing by Michelle Kisner, and a new interview with Nabatoff.
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
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