Night Falls on Manhattan
He’s a prosecutor amongst the new intake of the New York District Attorney’s office, but unlike his peers who headed to law school straight after graduating high school he came up a different way, a former police officer following in the steps of his detective father who attended night school while working the beat by day, now thrust into the spotlight when his father is seriously injured in a stakeout gone wrong, three cops dead on the pavement and the suspect escaped in a stolen police vehicle.
His father Liam recovering in hospital, Sean Casey is asked to lead the case when drug dealer Jordan Washington hands himself in, DA Morgenstern believing it is an open and shut case and that the son of an injured officer will have sway with a jury, but the defendant is represented by Sam Vigoda, known for grandstanding, who suggests the accused was fleeing a setup where he was to be executed for what he could reveal about corruption within the police force.
Based on the 1993 novel Tainted Evidence by former NYPD officer Robert Daley, it was adapted by Fail Safe director Sidney Lumet three years later as Night Falls on Manhattan starring Andy Garcia in the lead role with Richard Dreyfuss as Vigoda, Ian Holm as Liam, James Gandolfini as Joey Allegretto and Lena Olin as Vigoda’s assistant Peggy Lindstrom who creates a potential conflict of interest when she prompts a relationship with Sean.
Vigoda a thorn in the side of Morgy (Ron Leibman), as he is known to his few friends, while his methods are questionable they are not without purpose and they produce the intended results, a case opened by Internal Affairs to investigate the possibility there is a taint which runs through the three precincts whose response was disproportionate and instigated before the shooting even started, almost as if they had reason to wish Washington (Shiek Mahmud-Bey) silenced.
A superior thriller shot entirely on location in New York which questions the grey areas of the law and those who are charged with upholding it, there is little superfluous material in Night Falls on Manhattan, moving swiftly from shootout to court case to the aftermath, depicting a complex and sometimes compromised system where the majority are dedicated to doing the right thing, the only frustration in an excellently structured and staged film the peripheral role of Peggy, a complication and sounding board for Sean rather than an integral character in her own right.
Presented as a 2K remaster from the original negative by Arrow, their new edition of Night Falls on Manhattan is supported by two archive commentaries, one with Lumet and the other with Garcia and Leibman alongside producers Josh Kramer and Thom Mount, on-set interviews with Lumet, Garcia, Dreyfuss, Olin, Holm and Leibman and an hour-long archive documentary covering Lumet’s career featuring interviews with the director himself, Garcia, Leibman, Jack Lemmon, Rod Steiger, Christopher Walken and others.
Night Falls on Manhattan will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow from Monday 14th September
