For the recently appearing stories about America's finest the police part is no longer enough. It's imperative for them to have involved moral values and family drama in which the honor of the family and the badge is defended and uphold by generations of valiant cops, and the naughty relatives are enlightened and turned to the good. The result of the consecutive attempt is quite predictable - just another good cop (Edward Norton) + bad cop (Colin Farrell) + all entangled in one family + ruined marriage + corruption + murder + whateverclichecomestomind soap opera.
Gavin O'Connor (director and co-writer) doesn't leave anything to the imagination, disclosing in the very beginning (probably deliberately) almost completely the already predictable plot... everything after that is just a stream of boring scenes, worthy of some Venezuelan TV super-production in 600 episodes, leading to just as predictably boring and terribly unconvincing finale.
Edward Norton and Colin Farrell are actually trying their best with their plain characters, set up in a threadbare environment (and their performances are not that impressive), but still it's my firm belief that there is no such actor that couldn't cover at least partly to compensate for the wretched screenplay and the bad directing. Jon Voight succeeds in extracting a bit more from his otherwise ordinary role and definitely deserves admiration for his performance.
To sum it up: save your money, you won't get anything more than an already seen, poorly directed and oversimplified family drama with hints of police blue, unnecessary inflated to just over two hours and totally not deserving actors such as Edward Norton, Colin Farrell and Jon Voight.
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