PRIDE AND GLORY (15) Thriller Starring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell. Are there any good cops in New York City? Time and again, when filmmakers hit the mean streets of the Big Apple, the uniformed men and women who are supposed to be upholding the law are the very same people bending it beyond all recognition.

Cross one line and you can always draw another. Pride And Glory pounds the beat with a band of brothers for whom intimidation, extortion and murder are badges of honour.

If a suspect refuses to co-operate, beat them to a bloody pulp or – as in the film's most shocking sequence – threaten to press the red-hot steam iron into their newborn child's face.

The end always justifies the means, no matter how morally repugnant. Gavin O'Connor's gritty thriller centres on a multi-generational police family based out of the fictional 31st Precinct in Washington Heights, whose rise comes at the expense of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.

When four men from the department are ambushed and slain during a drug bust, Chief of Manhattan Detectives Francis Tierney Sr (Voight) assembles a crack task force to identify and capture the shooter.

He implores his son, Detective Ray Tierney (Norton), to lead the investigation, working alongside brother Francis Jr (Emmerich), the dead men's commanding officer, and brother-in-law Jimmy Egan (Farrell).

“Four cops died,” says Francis Sr, sombrely. “No matter what we've forsaken of ourselves, we can't forsake them.”

Ray reluctantly agrees and his meticulous work uncovers undeniable evidence of police involvement in the drug war between Angel Tezo (Rodriguez) and Eladio Casado (Gonzalez): someone at the precinct tipped off the dealers that armed units were on the way.

"If my guys were doing something, I'd know about it," counters Francis Jr angrily as the NYPD becomes embroiled in a scandal that makes grim reading on the front page of the morning newspaper.

Meanwhile, the entire Tierney clan prepares for the impending death of Francis Jr's beloved wife Abby (Ehle), who is in the final stages of terminal cancer. Pride And Glory employs handheld cameras to maintain uncomfortable close proximity to the action, shadowing detectives as they work a crime scene or hunkering down during a standoff with an armed man.

Meanwhile director of photography Declan Quinn opts for a grimy, colour-bleached palette that makes the city seem cold and foreboding, shooting on locations far off the tourist track.

The violence is graphic though not gratuitous – the most basic means of communication between dirty cops and criminal low-lifes. Norton and Farrell are solid in underwritten roles but both are out-gunned by Emmerich, whose scenes with his dying wife leave a lasting impression.

"I am in the middle of something and I don't know how to get out of it," Francis Jr shamefacedly confesses to Abby.

3 out of 5 stars