Narc Review (Arrow Films)
Joe Carnahan’s Narc opens with one of the most breathlessly frenetic foot chases ever committed to film – a dizzying, handheld sequence that hurls the viewer into the seedy, unforgiving criminal underworld of Detroit. It’s a real jolt of an opening scene, and a fitting start to this arresting, uncompromising police procedural.
Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) is a disgraced former undercover cop, enticed back to the job to investigate the death of a fellow officer. He’s paired up with the dead officer’s volatile former partner, Lieutenant Henry Oak (Ray Liotta), and together they follow a murky trail of drug dealers, addicts and thieves, while seeing the psychological toll that an undercover role takes on the individual – something Tellis is all too familiar with.
A stark blend of modern sensibilities and the docu-realism of the classic cop thrillers of the 1970s like The French Connection, The Seven Ups and Serpico, Narc is an excoriating deconstruction of the undercover cop genre, full of sharp procedural detail, moral ambiguity, and blistering tension. This new Arrow release provides the perfect excuse to revisit a much-neglected genre classic. Lauded by William Friedkin as “the best cop film I’ve ever seen”, Narc isn’t just a homage – it’s a worthy successor.
Patric brings a quiet intensity to Tellis, a man torn between his idyllic home life and the inexorable pull of undercover policework. The domestic scenes carry a genuine emotional weight, heightened through the parents’ natural interactions with their newborn baby, which immediately brings authenticity and tenderness to their scenes together. His scenes with his wife (Krista Bridges) are gentle and authentic, grounding the chaos – the big argument scene feels so much more stressful with the baby crying in the background. Patric’s performance is naturalistic and subtle, and honestly, he’s never been better. For the most part, he underplays his role, and yet we never doubt that he’s teetering on the very brink of mental collapse.
Similarly, Liotta delivers one of the finest performances of his career. As Oak, he’s a hulking, grief-scorched figure – he tears into the material with ferocity, but he is also devastatingly restrained at times. He enters every scene like a harbinger of doom, exuding a heavy, brute inevitability. But unlike Training Day’s Alonso Harris, Oak isn’t a pantomime villain. He might be “everything a cop cannot be,” but he’s also a nuanced, surprisingly sympathetic character. You want to believe he’s a good man – but, you know, he’s played by Ray Liotta, so you never quite can.
In Friedkin’s assessment of the film, he compared Liotta’s performance to Orson Welles’ character in Touch Of Evil, and it’s an astute comparison. There’s a tragedy to both characters, and while neither is completely redeemed, there is a sadness to both characters that means it’s impossible to write them off as overt villains. It’s clear that Liotta recognised what a great role he had in Oak – he championed the film tirelessly, and was instrumental in getting Tom Cruise onboard as an executive producer. As Joe Carnahan says himself in an interview newly filmed for this release: “Without Liotta, there is no Narc.”
Visually, the film is cold and clinical, and this release from Arrow really accentuates Alex Nepomniaschy’s high contrast, blue colour palette, particularly in the flashback scenes, as well as highlighting little details like the actor’s breath at times (that warehouse must have been *freezing!*). Carnahan uses handheld camerawork and documentary realism to great effect, but he also peppers the film with subtle directorial flourishes – for example, the constant physical barriers between Oak and Tellis (glass partitions, windows), which hint that Oak has something to hide.
If it all sounds a bit heavy, there is also a blacker-than-black streak of humour that cuts through the darker more. Scenes involving an informant asking for a hit mid-interrogation, or a crime scene where an addict used a shotgun as a bong, are grotesque and absurd in equal measure. The seemingly straightforward script is also smarter than it lets on, constantly nudging the viewer to stay alert without showing its hand until the final scene.
Admittedly, the film’s final act does lapse into melodrama, and both Patric and Liotta are guilty of overdoing it a little in the final showdown, which itself feels slightly contrived. However, it all contributes to that stunning final shot that closes the film, a disquieting, ambiguous ending that poses a wrenching moral dilemma.
A potent mixture of Serpico and Rashomon, Narc is, at heart, a character study of broken men inside a broken system. It remains Carnahan’s best work by a mile. It’s a film that brims with creativity, vitality and technical precision, with two powerhouse performances at its centre. And yet, for all its violence and intensity, it’s the quieter character moments that linger in the memory – none more devastating than Oak’s touching monologue, beautifully delivered by Liotta: “We were talking wives. You have one. I had one.”
★★★★
Special Features: Audio commentary from Joe Carnahan and editor John Gilroy; New interview with Carnahan on the film, a feature on cinematographer Alex Nepomiaschy; Interviews with Krista Bridges, costume designer Gersha Philips and several featurettes and EPK interviews.
On Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray from July 7th / Jason Patric, Ray Liotta, Krista Bridges, Chi McBride, Busta Rhymes / Dir. Joe Carnahan / Arrow Entertainment, Paramount Pictures / 18
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