Narc

This film nearly went straight to video. Lionsgate had no intention of releasing it theatrically. Tom Cruise saw it at Sundance, was impressed, and came aboard with Paula Wagner as executive producer; the Cruise/Wagner name secured a wide Paramount release. The budget was tight. The shoot ran twenty-seven days and Jason Patric and Ray Liotta both waived their salaries. The film is set in Detroit but was largely shot in Toronto. A suspended narcotics detective is offered reinstatement in exchange for solving the file on a murdered officer. The dead man's former partner is assigned to him, and the further the case goes the less trustworthy that partner looks. Joe Carnahan directed; the opening foot chase became one of the most discussed sequences of its year. Who it is for: viewers who like dirty, hopeless crime films rebuilding the hard police tradition of the 1980s. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clean image. The film is deliberately grainy, cold and unpleasant, and its drug and violence scenes are explicit.