Edward Norton.....a fine wine.

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Pride & Glory.

The one thing I love to see is progress in art. Any art. Any progress. Often I feel our country is regressing in its culture and appreciation for the arts so I always find myself refreshed to find an actor growing or a film that celebrates true art.

Today's feature was Pride & Glory. Now I don't want to come off sounding too much like it was a fantastic movie in the sense that the story line blew me away or the plot twists were a-mazing. It was intriguing, it was tense, the acting was superb and the cinematography was brill. It was not a shoot-em-up action flick or a police drama it was a well crafted piece of art.

Edward Norton is one of the most understated and incredible actors of his time. Every new film I see him in I'm riveted by his performance. He is difficult to pin-point as far as his genre goes. I'd like to compare him to someone as a reference point but every time I do I come up short. He is one of those actors that stands alone in his craft and does so wonderfully and more importantly subtly. In acting especially it seems good acting must come with the grandeur of show, in the public perspective. One must be devastatingly good looking or a rock hard action hero or a raunchy comedy genius to last. Yet Norton is not one of those things. Nor is he all of those things. He has this indefinable talent which is perhaps why he just continues to get better with each film he puts out. P&G was no exception, he could have easily taken his role and made it stereotypical good cop or martyred hero but he makes Ray honest and believable.

I do also have to note Colin Farrell's gripping turn in this flick. Typically I would brush Farrell off as all talk and no snuff as far as his craft goes but P&G proved that if given the proper circumstances he does a very good job at being an actor.

The best performance in the piece though came from the un-taggable name, Noah Emmerich. Without his performance the movie could have floundered into a horribly overdone NYPD version of good cop/bad cop. The addition of this conflicted, tortured middle man was well played and acted perfectly. Furthermore the scenes between Fran and Abbey were just poignant. Plan and simple good writing, great setting, beautifully executed.

On a final note the angles, the camera work and the sound make this movie complete. Some of the shots used fascinated me and the utilization of song versus score versus silence should receive adequate recognition by someone higher up in the film industry than this avid film watcher/part-time amateur critic.

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