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Captain Lt. Michael 'Mike' Brennan, NYPD: Oh, Reilly. You just loved the idea of your father. Now, your father was dirty. He was as dirty as they come. Nothing big, just penny-ante stuff. You know, free meals. A place to coop. For a while, he was a bag man for a pad in the South Bronx. The normal stuff. He took home $100, $150 a week. That's all. But hell, what a cop. Like me, he was the first through the door, the window, the skylight! I mean, he knew there were animals out there! He knew there was a line the niggers, the spics, the junkies, the faggots had to cross to get into people's throats. He was that line. I am that line. And the fucking judges and Jew lawyers, Aldermen and guinea DAs are raking it in. We take a fucking hamburger and it's goodbye badge, gun and pension. All the time, it's our life that's on the line. It's our widows and our orphans! Now you're a rogue cop, you mick bastard! You went from our side to their side.
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Preston Pearlstein: [getting introduced with Bloomenfeld's friend] How do you do? I'm delighted!
Leo Bloomenfeld: That's it Perlstein! Don't spoil my appetite, we haven't eaten yet.
Preston Pearlstein: [laughing] what a character!
[laughing again, louder]
Leo Bloomenfeld: Look at that son of a bitch.
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Leo Bloomenfeld: [telling Al Reilly about Kevin Quinn] He's a prick. He's a racist and an anti-Semite and a prick. He wants to be Tom Dewey, and he will be. He married for politics and all he can see is way clear to, god knows how high up. Years ago, when we still had executions in the state, he used to volunteer as a witness. Yeah, his first murdercase, uhh he was a young A.D.A. then and I'm talking years ago... The case was shaky, circumstancial and he wanted a recommended death penalty from the jury. Before he was finished, he had them leaving that poor black kid at rape their mothers. He goes up to Sing-Sing for the electrocution. And the next day, we're sitting around, drinking coffee and he walks in with this grin on his face and someone says "Hey, how did it go?", he says, casually, "He fried!" and then he says, "I sure hope he was guilty!" and he laughs! Fuck him! Now and forever!
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Captain Lt. Michael 'Mike' Brennan, NYPD: You're the whitest black man I know, Chappy.
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Det. Luis Valentin: Your ass was grassed man and he went in there, with left-pipe, and he saved your ass... And now you're gonna deny him over his dead body? Man, Cobarde!
Bobby Texador: Cobarde?
Det. Luis Valentin: Yeah! You fucking coward! Tony loved you like a brother, man! He worked for you since!
Bobby Texador: You know, we knew you was a punk then but you're being a punk now. Yeah, detective, come on, you couldn't find a fucking Jew in Rockaway. You know, you got a badge and a gun but you're still a punk so shut the fuck up.
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Amazon.com
A grim, disheartening view of the underside of city life, Q & A is a legal drama with a disturbing twist. Not exactly a whodunit--the guilt of policeman Nick Nolte is established early on--the plot follows the closing of the circle around him. Leading the murder investigation is Timothy Hutton's young, idealistic district attorney Al Reilly, who finds himself battling a fraudulent and cynical culture. Racism, corruption, and political machinations are all added to the mix, resulting in a film that is just a little too dense and slow-moving to capture the imagination. Director Sidney Lumet creates a feeling of enveloping darkness around Hutton, who slowly manages to let the light in and bring the truth to the surface. With an obviously small budget, the film has more of a made-for-television feel than that of a big blockbuster and some of the performances err too much on the side of cliché. The concept of the New York melting pot is fairly effectively dismissed by the film, painting a picture of distrust between communities that often spills into violence, both verbal and physical. Not quite as unremittingly bleak as Harvey Kietel's Bad Lieutenant, Q & A is still a tough, dark piece of cinema. --Phil Udell
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