NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN Arrow Blu-Ray Review
Heralded as one of the greatest directors of our time, the late Sidney Lumet takes center stage as Arrow Video primes its May 7 release of the 1996 courtroom crime drama, Night Falls On Manhattan. The film stands out as one of several milestone features in Lumet’s celebreted resumé, aimed at spotlighting injustice and police corruption, earning its leading man, Andy García, an ALMA Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Feature Film at the time.
Robert Daley’s 1993 novel, “Tainted Evidence,” serves as the basis for Lumet’s screenplay. It centers on Sean Casey (Garcia), thrust into daily rigmarole as a recently-appointed ADA, whose career gets an unexpected uptick. The city’s most notorious criminal, Jordan Washington (Shiek Mahmud-Bey), is on the loose after shooting his way out of a bust, killing two cops and wounding one during his violent escape from a surrounded apartment building.
Among his victims is Sean’s father, New York detective and 37-year veteran, Liam (Ian Holm), after engaging Washington alongside his partner, Joey (James Gandolfini). Welcome with open arms by otherwise brash and short-tempered District Attorney Morgenstern (Ron Leibman), Sean is handed the opportunity of a lifetime to prosecute Washington once in custody.
What follows is a rollercoaster of faustian proportions, as a presumably open-and-shut case against a cop killer – among other things – becomes central to an even larger cause being shepherded by Washington’s own defense attorney, Vigoda (Richard Dreyfuss). That cause pertains to a slowly-brewing case involving corrupt cops, and the particulars that underscore the eruptive incident that led to the aforementioned incident.
The stakes are raised even higher as Sean’s relationship with a member of Vigoda’s legal team, Peggy (Lena Olin), and Sean’s own ascension to District Attorney following Morganstern’s near-fatal heart attack, begin to factor into the complexities of Sean’s newfound role. Even more pertinent to the seriousness of Sean’s not-so-closed case against Washington is the surfacing of another corrupt cop’s corpse, ensuing a shocking twist that will force Sean to question everything he knows about the law, as well as right and wrong.
If there’s one thing Night Falls On Manhattan perfectly iterates, its the unabashed cultivation of entitlement within law enforcement and criminal justice that so enables the kind of corruption at the core of this story. It is precisely the lynchpin upon which Sean is irrevocably resigned to gauge his priorities, particularly at a crucial moment in the second half of the film which also involves a confrontation with Judge Impelliteri (Dominic Chianese), who presided on the case against Washington.
Of course, there is ample room for the kind of politicking and skullduggery indicative of the conditions of the culture of privilege, conditional therein. We see how this plays out between Sean’s first meeting with Morganstern whose abrupt and authoritative tone becomes more nuturing as his much more experienced lead prosecutor, Harrison (Colm Feore) watches on. It’s only after Sean leaves the room that we learn the true nature of the goings-on between Morganstern and Harrison, as the movie further explores Sean’s career progression midway in the film.
Olin’s role of Peggy is relatively smaller compared to her counterpart in Garcia’s Sean. She lives a life of affluence and comes from money, and is especially capable of taking care of herself even after having been previously married. That aspect is intergral to her unwillingness to accept Sean’s unrelenting proposals at times, although she does get warmer to the idea as time passes.
This particular addendum throughout Night Falls On Manhattan also goes in hand with Sean’s correspondence with Vigoda, whose initial platform is more personal than just a means of career-making. Dreyfuss makes impeccable work of the role of Vigoda, a man intent on achieving a goal, controversy be damned over defending Washington whose skin color is more than enough for plenty to warrant immediate jailtime or worse.
To the film’s credit though, matters of race and racism rest on ambiguity where machinations of police culture and take shape. This certainly extends to the impasse Sean faces later in the film when the extent of Joey’s involvement is put on display. The result is a moving capitulation between father and son, at an inflection point that’s as noble as it is damning.
There’s definitely no getting over the kind of racial subtext that coincides with observing stories law enforcement, even fictional ones as Lumet’s 1996 feature. There’s also no getting past the ugliness of the framework made conclusive in Lumet’s well-artuculated deliniation of what it means to be a purveyor of criminal justice in the nineties.
Not for nothing either, as a film like Night Falls On Manhattan certainly has its reasons for translating as well as it does for some in the twenty-first century. Bookended by a remarkable line-up of performances with Garcia taking point, Night Falls On Manhattan can be interpreted a few ways depending on your mindset. It can be seen as a cautionary tale of the kind of culture that so emboldens monikers such as “Blue Lives Matter” and the like. Or, one can take from this film a story of redemption, rich with nuance in its study of human nature. Or, it can be viewed as just a shitty copaganda flick. Your pick. Lumet, for what it’s worth, cared none too much about the future or how he wanted to be remembered, instead focusing on his work more than anything.
Lumet divulges as much and more in an hour-long featurette from season three of limited documentary series, “The Directors,” which is included in the limited edition Blu-Ray disc of Arrow Video’s Night Falls On Manhattan. The episode features clips and highlights from Lumet’s extensive resume dating back to his 1957 feature debut, 12 Angry Men. It also showcases interview segments from several actors Lumet has worked with over the years, including Melanie Griffith, Ossie Davis, Dyan Cannon and more.
The disc also includes a behind-the-scenes featurette on Night Falls On Manhattan with twenty minutes of footage of the cast during its New York City shoot. The footage reveals multiple areas of the production, including but not limited to Garcia’s first scene with Leibman and Feore, the courtroom drama with Dreyfuss, and the intense police raid that occurs at the top of the film, and Lumet’s hands-on approach to directing these scenes.
This also gets a bit more dissecting in “The Directors” episode, as well as in the disc’s sub-menu containing six individuals interviews with Lumet and the cast. Each of those interviews is mostly cut down to about two or three minutes, with exception to Lumet’s.
The limited edition disc also comes with a gallery containing a trio of TV spots, and the film’s official trailer from Paramount Pictures. The movie itself is delivered in 1080p, remastered in 2K with lossless 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio, which are also perfect for listening to Wynton Marsalis’s score.
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!