Internal Affairs

Raymond Avilla works in internal affairs, the police who police the police. Looking at a routine file, the name of a patrol officer called Dennis Peck starts appearing too often. Peck is liked by everyone, trusted in the neighbourhood and married four times. The further Avilla opens the file, the wider the system the man has built turns out to be. The subject is not corruption but how Peck reads people. He does not threaten; he finds the most fragile place in whoever is opposite him and speaks from there. Going after Avilla's marriage is not a plan either, it is habit. The form is cool and blue. Mike Figgis wrote his own score and keeps the sound level deliberately low throughout; the eruptions of violence land harder inside that quiet. It is the director's first American film. The real argument was Richard Gere's role: he was known until then for romantic leads and plays entirely on the other side here. That choice became the most discussed thing about the film. Andy Garcia plays the investigator, Nancy Travis his wife and Laurie Metcalf his partner. Who it is for: viewers who like late-eighties police thrillers and films built around the villain. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by how the women are written; the film largely uses them as instruments of threat.