Rating: 
Summary: a missed classic
Review: In BriefWhen a drug bust goes awry and a pregnant woman is shot, undercover narcotics officer Nick Tellis (Jason Patric) is suspended from the Detroit Police Force. Tortured by the horror of his work and the extent to which he had to lead the life of an addict when undercover, Tellis is not anxious to go back onto the force. Eighteen months after his suspension, and facing a review board and he is told he is needed to help crack a homicide case. Ignoring his wife's concerns about his mental stability & with no satisfaction away from the life he was born to lead he returns, yet the world he once knew has grown darker, no one can be trusted and nothing is as it once seemed. Review As Tellis stands upon the stairwell of the police department stairs after his review with the board he has a choice; either way, the spiral up or down doesn't give him a straight or clear path, yet here this decision decides the narrative of the entire film. The subtlety that Carnahan instils in the portrayal of the confliction that Tellis suffers is always genuine and his use of environment is simple yet shows a confident filmmaker, that while capable of intense work knows when the narrative justifies it. Nominated for the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and winner of the Special Prize Policier Award at the Cognac Film Festival in France, Narc is not only directed but also written by the innovative Joe Carnahan. I say innovative as this one of the best films I have seen in sometime, and while it may not be as fresh as City of God, it is equally shocking. This is modern film noir: a gritty violent depraved world is depicted upon the screen and the film acts as an assault upon the senses. Yet this journey is in no way gratuitous, with homage's to The French Connection & Serpico, Carnahan is respectful of where this film is leading on from and how it will eventually fit into same world as it undoubtedly draws comparisons to. Narc works so well as it rests upon the shoulders of both Patric and Ray Liotta without cause for either actor to falter. Patric is as strong as he is gentle, silence surrounds his world, and one becomes aware at just how often the world he views is seen as tight and suffocating - not only in his performance but again through the continual use of a shallow depth of field and closed shots around him. Indeed the image of him with his baby in the shower immersed in a warm glow, following his reliving of the accidental shooting of a pregnant women, is one of the most beautiful in the film. While both men are persecuted in their lives and carry tortured souls, it is Ray Liotta who carries this film so well as Henry Oak. In what has to be his best work since Goodfellas, this is an Oscar winning performance if ever I have seen one. A swollen Homicide Detective with a 93% conviction rate, Oak is a harsh bastard who has his own law and relishes every opportunity to depart justice to those he feels deserves it. His involvement in the storyline is key and like his character is not as plane as the brashness that seems to depict him. With an ending you wont see coming, this is a shockingly strong film that has to be seen to be believed. The Verdict
An amazing feature that will leave you sitting with your mouth open, jaw slack, and as exhausted as the characters lives. This is a theatrical experience that isn't about flashy CGI or camera tricks but the harshness of the world we live in. There is one more disturbing film out there at the moment, but like City of God, nothing compares to Narc
Rating:
Summary: Narc deserves a peek.
Review: Narc shouldn't be as good a film as it is. Not to say Joe Carnahan's diary-of-a-dirty-cop crime thriller is a spectacular movie (it isn't) but Narc pulls off a cinematic feat rare in today's motion pictures: genuine mood. The truth is that the good-cop-bad-cop scenario here has already been played out so many times that there aren't that many avenues left to explore, and LA Confidential already gave us a searing look at the dirty dealings behind old-time Hollywood. But that film's popular success was all in its style, its cinematic pizzazz, and not its storyline. Narc, to this writer, is as good as, if not better than, LA Confidential simply because it sticks to its narrative guns in the same fashion Curtis Hanson did in his opus. Both films are conscious of the limitations of the genre yet do what they can to succeed within such strict guidelines. I would not deem either film a colossal success writing- wise, because with genre pieces like these, it was all about the kinetic thrill of watching cops strategize against one another. Yeah, sure, it would be nice to get more hard-edged, more nihilistic dialogue to spice up the conflict (to its credit, L.A. Confidential trumps it in that regard), but Narc still delivers great chase, eloquence be damned. After some unbearably long production credits - there are more than ten executive producers listed - Carnahan starts us off with a bullet. As Jason Patric chases a suspect through, tragically, a playground, Carnahan shoves his herky-jerky filmmaking style in our faces. If you're not a fan of assaultive cinema - extensive P.O.V. shots, endless handheld "grittiness" - this sensibility will come off as overindulgent and excessive, but if you can stomach it, it's captivating. Stars Jason Patric and Ray Liotta have some turgid, explosive confrontations that allow for both of these notoriously histrionic actors to fly off the handle, and they pull of the melodramatics with masterful broad strokes. And the film's visual style is really quite striking. Relying not just on the immediacy of "unhinged" handheld camera moves, Carnahan pays attention to nuances and environmental details with effective jump-cut close- ups, and is able to infuse a pretty tired old storyline with messy, frantic adrenaline. It's no wonder this is the guy poised to helm the next Mission: Impossible movie - he hasn't mastered the ebb and flow of egregious narrative like Brian DePalma or harnessed the technical prowess of David Fincher, but one can construe from watching Narc that the guy has a nice sense of artistic instinct, and has the courage to follow it. Narc is a film that follows its gut, and that makes for a fascinating ride.
Rating:
Summary: Brutal grim
Review: With jittery cameras,Brutal Violence,Strong languege,and graphic
drug use that even give Traffic and Requiem for a dream a run for
their money,also 2 well respected actors Ray Liotta and Jason Pa
tric playing 2 brutal,grimy,but yet dedicated and moral cops this
is a insane cop drama for the ages.Jason Patric plays Nick Tellis
fresh off a brutal shootout witch you see at the begining of the
movie in which he kills a pregnant woman by accident,one of the
most brutal scene I've seen in a long time.Tellis while being an
undercover Narcotics officer became an addict to heroin and is
being hassled by I.A.And theres Ray Liottas charactor a big,well
known(infamous)brutal Narcotics cop who is hell-bent on finding
the people that murderd his old junkie partner.There are many
brutaly violent,grimy,foul,and perverse events that happen from here on out so beware.
Rating: 
Summary: WAY!!!!!!!!! Too much profanity!!!!!
Review: This film is loaded with nearly 300 uses of the "F" word, and it also features some of the bloodiest violence I've ever seen in a cop film. Absolute waste of time!
Rating:
Summary: Character driven cop flick with plenty of violence
Review: Ray Liotta and Jason Patric star in the 2002 cop flick. Their roles are more developed than in a formula action movie although there's plenty of violence. Jason Patric cast as the younger of the two cops, with a history of accidentally shooting a pregnant woman. Liotta is cast as the older cop and he really looks the part; he's overweight and world-weary and seems to have seen it all and done it all. They're out to solve a murder of a fellow police officer, the former partner of Liotta. The setting is the Detroit slums. Patric has a newborn son and a wife who wants him to give up the job. The murdered cop had a wife and kids too. There's a little too many maudlin scenes about this and this is the part of the film that drags. The action scenes never drag though. They're rough and tough and over-the-top in their grittiness and realism. But what makes this film different from other cop films is that, in spite of the action, it's all about the characters. Ray Liotta has a secret, and it's not until the end that we find out what it is. It's a satisfactory conclusion with all the ends tied up. I enjoyed the film and recommend it for cop-film fans especially. But be forewarned about the violence.
Rating:
Summary: A Small Gem in Well-Traveled Territory.
Review: This is a very good movie. The genre of bad-cops, vice etc. has been constantly taken apart and rebuilt in a hundred other movies over the last 20 years, not to mention in NYPD Blue and a dozen similar shows every day. There is no new ground here, so making this watchable and unique is really noteworthy. The performances were spare and clean. The conversations have a reality and depth that is impressive. The mystery element is unsolved and surprising right to the end. Joe Carnahan is a director with a careful eye for detail and very good dialogue and storytelling technique. I'm sure he'll soon be heading up larger projects. Ray Liotta is perhaps the only wrong note - if only because he's played some big teddy-bear types lately and the hard-edge character doesn't feel as real to me anymore. Perhaps someone else might have played it with more depth. I don't know if this is really necessary as a purchase, but it's a great rental - you will not regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bravo.
Review: Simply put, this film is sledge-hammer-to-the-chest, both-eyes-agape, runaway-train-through-a-living-room astonishing. I watched this movie and immediately woke my 3 year old up around 3:00 a.m. to embrace her as tight as I annoyingly could. That's how this movie affects you. If you have children and ever see this film, I promise you'll do exactly the same thing. And might I say a sincere bravo to Joe Carnahan for delivering such a treat to those of us who believe true filmmaking is dead. I myself work directly in Hollywood as an active member on film sets and I regretfully admit that I have become jaded and cynical towards "movies". But this one knocked me out of my socks. I think to quote an ever on point Tom Cruise, " . . . I was pinned to my seat." And I honestly can't remember the last time such a gritty, raw and unrelentless vehicle like this one made me forget I was actually watching a "movie". Lord knows if I didn't know a thing about a thing, I'd have probably thought this was some kind of documentary. So that little bit being said without actually saying a thing about NARC, this film is absolutely incredible.
Rating:
Summary: Strong character piece.
Review: This film is for those who enjoy films with strong, realistic portrayals of real people in extraordinary circumstances. Which is the case of Ray Liotta and Jason Patric's characters: two cops, which are totally opposite in the way they behave and handle things.
Liotta's character has passed the thin line that divides a man in control of his emotions and respectful of law and authority, and one who cannot or doesn't want to do things in the right way: he simply has lost interest, and has too much rage to give a damn about things, so, to him the end justifies the means. But the problem is that there is no way in which this character can get rid of his demons, there isn't a way in which he can redeem himself, not with the way he decided things should be done.
Patric's character, on the other side, also has a conflicted conscious, but still believes in doing good. And to him, the end does not justify the means. He is a man who still has something to look up for, something to cherish, and does whatever he can to preserve things that way, no matter how hard things get.
This is a film about these two cops and their struggles within themselves and their antagonistic way in which they see things should be done. But there are not good or evil people here; there are not black and whites; but there is only one way to make things at least a little better.
Rating:
Summary: amazingly intense acting and story
Review: the performances here are first rate. from the leads all the way down to the supporting characters. no punches are pulled in the telling of this story. simply put, this movie is crazy intense. i couldnt look away from the movie i was so wrapped up into it. jason patric is forgiven for speed 2. ray liotta is great. the camera work and direction is perfect. i was tense and uncomfortable during this movie- thats the way it makes u feel! a great film.
Rating:
Summary: GOOD POLICE MOVIE
Review: When I watched Narc, what came to my mind is the movie Training Day, but way way better! I was surprise the actors in the movie were not commended for their acting. Such a waste, actors like Mr.R. Liotta is not given due credit for his acting (very subtle, very very good). Same with the other cast members. The theme although is very frightening/violent, the way it was presented the impact is so real and was very artistic. The director is very promising. A good buy!!! It is worth your time and money. I may say an eye opener to the humaneness of even the toughest individual.
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