Sidney Lumet's Night Falls On Manhattan has all the ingredients to be a top notch crime drama, and when you look at the cast assembled here, it's a surprise that this didn't resonate more with audiences. Maybe the corruption angle wasn't to everyone's tastes, who knows, but Lumet made a decent film that has more than one excellent performance to go along with Andy Garcia's starring role.

When a drug kingpin kills two policemen and leaves another fighting for his life in hospital, the district attorney of New York City wants a showcase trial when the perpetrator is brought to justice. He appoints the son of the injured officer as the prosecutor, despite his inexperience, and as the trial becomes a circus after a major defence lawyer takes on the case for the drug kingpin, there's more on trial than an animal who gunned down policemen. Corruption rears it's ugly head, and despite the defendant being found guilty on all charges, he's caused enough of a stir for internal affairs to be looking at cops who may have wanted the drug dealer dead. From then on in the surprises come thick and fast, as the whole scale of the corruption starts to reveal itself, but will it taint Andy Garcia's office or his hero father?

There's much to like in Sidney Lumet's Night Falls On Manhattan, it's punchy, it's slickly edited and scripted, and in Andy Garcia we see a little of the talent that shone so bright in The Godfather Part III and in The Untouchables. He's well supported here too, with James Gandolfini as a corrupt partner of Ian Holm, Garcia's career policeman father, and the likes of Richard Dreyfuss, Colm Feore, and Lena Olin as a love interest for Garcia. It doesn't have the punch of Serpico or the gravitas of The Verdict, but there are DNA strands of both of them here, a tale or morality, of justice, and of doing the right thing even if it costs you your soul. Although not a huge hit at the box office, this is still a n accomplished film with fine performances throughout, but did anyone think for one minute that James Gandolfini's Joey was innocent? Not a chance, he was on the way to being stereotyped, and it must have helped him bag the role of a lifetime as Tony Soprano.