Night Falls on Manhattan (1996) * * *

 

Directed by:  Sidney Lumet

Starring:  Andy Garcia, Ian Holm, Ron Leibman, Shiek Mahmud-Bey, Richard Dreyfuss, Lena Olin, James Gandolfini, Bobby Cannavale

Sidney Lumet was a brilliant director whose best films were studies in morality, ethics, and their ability to crush the lives of those wrestling with either.  Night Falls on Manhattan gives us a morally upstanding hero named Sean Casey (Garcia), an up-and-coming assistant DA handling a high-profile case of a drug dealer who killed cops during a bust.  The dealer (Mahmud-Bey) insists it was self-defense.  His attorney Sam Vigoda (Dreyfuss) brings up the likelihood that the cops involved were not busting him, but attempting to assassinate him for a dispute over their cut.  Vigoda not only wants to vigorously defend his client, but has other motives which are discussed later in a sad monologue in a sauna.

Night Falls on Manhattan gives us Sean's rise to the DA's office.  His former boss DA Morgenstern (Leibman) suffers a heart attack and later confides in Sean what the job will do to you physically and emotionally.  The best scenes in the movie are ones in which characters slowly explain the gray areas to Sean, who up until his father is implicated in corruption is all about throwing the bums in prison.  What would you do if it were your father?  Or friend?  Or another loved one?  This is the moral quagmire Sean finds himself in.

The cast is a collection of masters.  Garcia is always up to the task of playing hotshot whose conscience gets the better of him.  In a way, all of the characters show us their public faces and their private dilemmas.  Morgenstern is a loud blowhard, but that's part of being a DA, and Leibman puts in an exhausting amount of energy trying to live up to that.   Dreyfuss gives Night Falls on Manhattan's best performance and its surprisingly moral center.   He's at his best when we realize he isn't showing us all the cards.  The weaker scenes involve Lena Olin as Sean's girlfriend who works in Vigoda's office.  Their relationship doesn't have an arc and could've been dispensed and we wouldn't have missed it.  I guess they figured Sean needed someone to talk to when he wasn't in the office.  

Still, Night Falls in Manhattan allows us the opportunity to witness policing and the law while discovering the two may be mutually exclusive.  Some can live with that, especially if you're part of the system.